


What Good Permitting Some Prophet of Doom

by jpnadia



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Burlesque, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies With Benefits, F/F, Found Family, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Lingerie, Mirror Sex, Porn with Feelings, Singer Harrowhark Nonagesimus, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:08:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22939195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jpnadia/pseuds/jpnadia
Summary: On the execrable scale of interactions involving Gideon Nav, this rises perilously close to excellence.-or-The burlesque AU with the hate-fucking.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 152
Kudos: 354





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One time my friend was eating Girl Scout cookies on the couch. The bunny was curious, so he held out a Thin Mint for her to sniff.
> 
> She lunged for the cookie, clamped it between her teeth, and scampered into the bedroom to savor her ill-gotten gains.
> 
> My friend was cleaning up bunny diarrhea for days.
> 
> That's kind of how I got the idea for this story. Thanks for letting me steal it, V, and I'm sorry in advance.
> 
> ___  
> Title from Cabaret, in accordance with prophecy.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus doesn’t react at all when Gideon Nav walks into the karaoke bar where Harrow has just taken the microphone and the stage. She has had too many years of voice lessons to falter just because something unexpected happens while she is performing. She hasn’t made that kind of mistake onstage since she was ten, and she’ll be damned if she makes one now because of Gideon Nav.

Gideon, however, freezes in the doorway. Her ridiculous hair attracts the attention of everyone in the room-- it always has-- and the entire bar gets treated to the sight of Gideon Nav gawping like some kind of bumpkin who’s never heard of karaoke before. The two women who walked in the door with her don’t seem amused, either. They have to grab Gideon’s arm and drag her to a table. 

Fierce triumph glows inside Harrow’s ribcage. She had hoped that she would never see Gideon again, that once they had graduated, Gideon would have left town, never to be seen again, preferably by anyone but minimally not by Harrow.

If her night has to include Gideon Nav, let it also include Gideon’s shame.

From her table, Gideon’s freakish amber eyes catch Harrow’s, and Gideon mouths something Harrow cannot make out. No problem there: Harrow doesn't care about anything Gideon could possibly want to say to her. She finishes her song, passes the microphone to insipid Dulcinea Septimus, who is undoubtedly going to butcher her selection, and goes back to her table as if she did not recognize Gideon at all.

She had not wanted to come to karaoke night in the first place, she thinks darkly as she skulks in the shadow cast by Coronabeth Tridentarius's excessive grandeur. This is all Palamedes' fault.

He'd threatened to take her out of the lineup if she didn't leave her house for at least one non-rehearsal event.

"This is extortion," Harrow had told him.

He'd shrugged. "Magnus agrees with me."

To Harrow's chagrin, it's conventional, well-dressed Magnus Quinn who holds their troupe of antisocial goth-cabaret misfits together, coaxing their brittle and broken personalities to gel into some semblance of an actual community. Even Palamedes, with his years of practice, doesn't have that magic touch. Plus, they practice in Magnus's basement, which has the appropriate mirrors and doesn't require negotiating with commercial spaces that might constrain performance artists who just happen to take some of their clothes off in the course of performing.

So, trapped without adequate escape routes, Harrow had capitulated as gracefully as possible. She had dressed like she was putting on armor: layers of stockings and slips and skirts, tops and jackets, makeup and, finally, just before stepping out the door, gloves.

She had thought that karaoke would at least give her something to do other than socialize. She hadn't been wrong. She just hadn't calculated for the presence of one extremely unwelcome Gideon Nav.

Never mind. She can adjust for it now.

With any amount of luck, Gideon will stay occupied with the two women she's come in with. They seem exactly her type, the kind of built woman she'd swanned around with in college.

Failing that, Harrow's troupe does not lack for pretty girls. She can see Dulcinea making eyes at Gideon from the stage, and Corona glitters next to Harrow's elbow. There are plenty of distractions to mitigate the fact that Gideon has recognized Harrow.

Down the table, Jeannemary Chatur elbows her partner in crime, Isaac Tettares. "Look at her," she hisses, pointing at Gideon. "How big _are_ her biceps?"

Harrow revises her plan.

Jeannemary and Isaac are barely old enough to get in the karaoke bar in the first place. Harrow downs a shot-- Magnus has bought another round for them all-- and considers petitioning the government to raise the drinking age to at least twenty-five. Jeannemary and Isaac are, individually and collectively, a menace, and neither of them should be allowed anywhere near alcohol.

Harrow needs to get out of there before someone does something stupid that will draw Gideon's attention.

She pushes back her chair, attempts to extricate herself from the cursed situation. Isaac confirms her worst fears.

He has signed the entire troupe to sing a medley from Into the Woods. If she leaves now, they'll tease her about it for weeks.

At least it isn't Annie.

She sulks over a rum and coke, only brightening when the entire table collectively winces as the bar suffers through Gideon's terrible rendition of Living On A Prayer. How disgustingly predictable.

She very carefully does not look at Gideon's table while she endures the group number. In a transparent and unsuccessful attempt to atone for his sins, Isaac has given her the role of the Witch. Also, possibly more saliently, she is the only one who can reliably hit all the notes. They are mostly a dance troupe; only Harrow really sings.

When they tromp off the stage, Isaac turns pleading eyes to Harrow, tries to convince her to stay. He probably feels guilty, like it's his fault Harrow is gathering up her coat and phone. It doesn't matter; Harrow cannot be coaxed to stay in a bar that containes Gideon Nav for an instant longer than necessary.

She goes to use the facilities before hailing a ride. It's early enough that there won't be much of a wait, but Harrow is prepared to walk home if necessary.

Of course, Gideon catches up with her on her way out.

"I had no idea you sang so well." Gideon is standing too close. She smells of beer and the same deodorant she wore in college, the most recent time she'd been close enough for Harrow to punch. As if Harrow's fists could make a difference against Gideon's ridiculous bulk. Still, if Harrow isn't careful, the scents will send her slamming face-first into junior year, to the time Harrow relented enough to go out with three of her advanced-seminar classmates to celebrate surviving midterm season and alcohol had convinced her to make a terrible mistake.

She turns her face away, filling her lungs with the marginally fresher air coming off the sweat-soaked karaoke stage. "Of course you didn't." Harrow has never sung around Gideon, because Gideon has always been like this-- teasing, too close, too big. Gideon takes up more room than she ought to, and always has.

Gideon ignores this and gives her a big, douchey smile. "So, wanna make out with me?" 

"You came in with two other women, and you're asking me if I want to make out with you?" Apparently, Gideon isn't the only one with awkward memories of junior year, because she's talking to Harrow as if they're old friends and not sworn enemies. It was only one night. Gideon doesn't even rate as Harrow's ex. Harrow has never had time to date.

"God, Nonagesimus, haven't you unbent even a little since school? Judith and Marta are my _co-workers_."

That, at least, makes more sense than two women voluntarily going anywhere with Gideon. She's still smiling, though, holding out her stupidly big palm, which has calluses on it. Probably from weightlifting.

Harrow glares at her and waits for her to give up and go away. Several lengthy seconds later, Harrow realizes that, for no reason whatsoever, Gideon is not leaving.

In fact, she has moved even closer. "I'm hot. You're hot. What do you say?"

Harrow resists the urge to scuttle back. Doing anything with Gideon would be a terrible mistake. Doing something with Gideon in a karaoke bar with Harrow's troupe and Gideon's co-workers barely across the room even more so. And still, the idea has grown on Harrow like a fungus. "As if I would condescend to make out with you," says Harrow, controlling the words to conceal the way her heartbeat accelerates. "But. If you would like to fuck." She can't quite say the next part.

Gideon understands anyway, damn her. She sweeps out her arm and opens the door to the tiny bathroom Harrow has just vacated. "After you, my lady."

Of course she can't even do this like a normal person, of course she has to take up space and make Harrow slither around her outstretched arm.

But. Harrow maneuvers around the obstacle that is Gideon and makes it back into the tiny bathroom. 

It has not improved in the five minutes Harrow has spent trying and failing to get rid of Gideon. The mirror is flecked with paint, the floor is sticky, and the walls close in on the toilet like they'd like to collapse on the chipped porcelain.

Gideon closes the door behind them and slides the lock into place. "So-- no kissing, just fucking?"

Harrow nods, terse, because Gideon is still smiling at her, as if they have a friendly relationship. She leans back against the sink, and Gideon closes in. Harrow forces herself to breathe, because she can feel Gideon's breath warm on the side of her neck, and there is a sudden sharp pain in her earlobe, which-- "Nav, did you just bite me?"

Gideon laughs, actually laughs. "You said no kissing."

Harrow gives Gideon an extremely dark look. It is one that she has practiced in the mirror and used for years. She knows for a fact that this look is very effective.

Gideon ignores the look.

"If you are going to mess around," says Harrow, very crisply, "I am going to leave."

That gets Gideon's attention. "If you tell me what you want, I won't have to guess."

"Just--" Harrow throws up her gloved hands. She considers strangling Gideon. There would be no fingerprints, but she doesn't think she would find enough success to make the venture worthwhile. Instead, she grips the sink very hard. "Fuck me."

Gideon just stands there, arms bracketing Harrow, not touching anywhere.

Apparently, she requires additional prompting. Harrow inclines her head. "You may use your hands or your mouth."

For some reason, that makes Gideon laugh again. "You're a piece of work, Nonagesimus. All right."

She runs her hand up Harrow's stockinged leg and warmth goes with it. Her fingers are sure and steady, and Harrow doesn't want to think about the other women Gideon must have touched to learn how to touch like that, so she thinks about how annoying it is that Gideon can still make her go damp when she looks at her with this hunger in her eyes.

Gideon stops, fingers arrested most of the way up Harrow's thigh, where the stocking gives way to lace and then, deeply buried under many layers, Harrow's skin.

"Are you stuck?" Harrow demands. She special-orders the stockings directly from the manufacturer; nowhere local carries the brands that meet her precise specifications. If Gideon has torn either one, Harrow will use the stocking to garrotte her, standing on the toilet for leverage if she has to. 

"Is that a garter?" asks Gideon, fingers moving again, exploring blind. And then, in a tone Harrow has never heard her use before, "Can I see?"

Harrow looks, then, and sees the way Gideon's eyes have gone dark with lust. Her ridiculous red hair has devolved further into disarray. She looks debauched already, even though she's done nothing but talk a big game and touch Harrow's stockinged thigh. "If you must," says Harrow, and is glad that she did, because Gideon slides immediately and gracelessly to her knees on the sticky floor.

Gideon makes a low, tortured sound when she rucks back Harrow’s skirts to expose the top of Harrow's stockings. It’s the sort of sound Harrow could wrap around her wrist and use to draw Gideon in by the throat. This is useful information, that she can so easily control Gideon with, of all things, a garter belt. She files it away for future reference, in case it ever comes in handy.

As if she ever plans to see Gideon again. Which she certainly does not.

It startles her when Gideon presses in, face-first, nuzzling against the cloth of her underwear.

Gideon was exactly like this before, all enthusiasm and no skill, except something _has_ changed because this time it’s good from the start. Harrow shifts her hips, experimentally, and finds herself yelping.

“I remember how sensitive you are,” says Gideon, lifting her face to look up at Harrow. Her lips glisten even under the flickering fluorescents. 

“Fuck you, Nav, don’t stop.” Harrow tangles her hands in Gideon’s terrible hair and pulls.

Gideon makes another one of those low choked noises as she drags Harrow's underwear off. Pleasure curls at Harrow’s lips and toes, and then Gideon applies her tongue properly to Harrow’s cunt.

Harrow focuses on how good it is to have Gideon on her knees. It's a beautiful thing, Gideon’s burnished skin laid out before her, properly subservient at last. Every so often, Gideon groans her pleasure against Harrow's thigh, and the reverberations echo from vertebra to vertebra all the way up Harrow's spinal column.

She knows, carefully distantly, that she’s making noises of her own. If she thinks about it too much, she’ll freeze up, have to stop Gideon, and then she will have humiliated herself for nothing.

For as long as her traitorous mind cooperates, though, the sex is good. Superlatives spin around the edges of Harrow’s brain, battering against her skull, and Harrow crushes them like flies. She can’t think of Gideon in glowing terms. The world might implode.

As Harrow’s knees give out, she finds herself slipping off her perch on the sink. Gideon just hooks an arm under her leg and takes her weight on her shoulders. Astonishingly, the biceps are useful for something.

Finally, when she’s so sensitive it hurts, Harrow tugs on Gideon’s hair. “Stop,” she says.

Gideon stops.

Harrow consumes reverence like other people consume air. She drinks it in deep greedy gulps every time she goes onstage and opens her mouth.

In the bar bathroom, Gideon sits back on her heels with her eyes blown and her lips slick and swollen. It's nearly as good.

Smoothing her skirts back into place, Harrow considers her options. “I hate you,” she says conversationally, just so that Gideon knows where she stands.

Gideon swipes the back of her wrist over her mouth. She’s turned on. Harrow can tell from the rough hitch of her breath, but she doesn’t press. Doesn't demand reciprocity from Harrow, doesn't make Harrow refuse. On the execrable scale of interactions involving Gideon Nav, this rises perilously close to excellence.

Images flit into Harrow’s unwilling mind of how Gideon will handle her obvious arousal. Gideon's hand stuck down into the waistband of her jeans, her head tipped back to expose her throat. The idea holds a certain sordid appeal.

"Damn! Do you do that with all the girls you hate?"

"Just you," says Harrow. "You are spectacularly annoying."

Gideon nods, as if that's fair, as if girls always tell her they hate her. "So can I have your number?"

Harrow finds herself passing her phone over, and Gideon sends herself a text while Harrow adjusts her corset.

* * *

Palamedes catches Harrow stumbling out of the bathroom, black lace slip peeking out from under her skirt. No one outside her troupe would have had a chance of noticing how off-balance Harrow is.

Palamedes notices. "Are you all right?" What he means is: has anyone done anything that Harrow didn't agree to. As if she'd let them, as if anyone who tried something like that would walk away with all the hands they'd started with.

Harrow shakes her hand free. "I'm fine," she tells him. She is. She _is._

* * *

Later that night, she gets home and deletes the message from her phone without saving Gideon's number. She drinks a glass of water, brushes her teeth, and changes into her nightgown. The long, thick fabric is familiar and, crucially, it smells like neither sex nor Gideon Nav. It still doesn't quite comfort her in the face of the dawning realization that she has let Gideon steal her underwear. Determined not to think about it, Harrow crawls into bed and draws the covers up over her head, as if the darkness will take the memories away.

It doesn't work.

* * *

The next morning, she wakes up to a text message from a number she doesn't know.

_That was fun. Want to do it again?_

_\- G_


	2. Chapter 2

Harrow gets other texts, too, of course. Palamedes wants to know if she got home safely. Abigail sends a reminder about Tuesday's rehearsal. 

Harrow dismisses all the notifications and doesn't think about it. She writes the underwear off as a loss and focuses on her job. It's neither intellectually challenging nor particularly remunerative, but it suffices. She can pay her bills and, more importantly, her job never interferes with her performance schedule.

Besides, she's good at it. She understands how to terrify the office-supply vendor into submission and unjam the unruly printer. In a particular professional triumph, she has successfully shamed every department into actually cleaning up their dishes in the communal kitchen. 

There’s a new hire in Engineering this week-- Harrow knows because she maintains the orientation materials. She’s a threat to Harrow’s well-ordered kitchen countertops. Harrow skulks in the environs, ready to mete out vengeance, and discovers that the Engineering department has made an unauthorized addition to the new-hire process.

"That's Harrowhark," the new engineer’s manager explains in tones he must think Harrow can’t hear. "You don't want to get on her bad side."

Harrow scowls at the trembling new hire and goes on to her next task, glowing internally.

It's a job. It keeps her busy. It doesn't leave room for her to dwell on trivialities, and especially not the kind of trivialities who have red hair and steal underwear.

* * *

It works for almost a whole week. Then, her phone buzzes again.

 _im doing laundry_ , the text message says.

Harrow glares at her phone. _For the sake of everyone you subject to your presence, I certainly hope you do laundry._ She has no idea why Gideon is interrupting Thursday rehearsal with utter banalities.

 _i found your underwear_ , Gideon texts back.

Aghast, Harrow stares at the screen. She knows better than to give out her phone number to random idiots at bars, and this is a perfect example why. She wracks her brain for a response, something that will keep Gideon from further desecrating her property.

"Anything good?" Dulcinea settles next to Harrow on the floor at the side of the room.

"Nothing to concern you," says Harrow, locking her phone hastily. 

Her phone buzzes again. Harrow puts it on Do Not Disturb and goes over the blocking again for their upcoming shows.

* * *

She doesn't dare check her phone again until she's safely on the bus ride home. There's a string of messages from Gideon, culminating, unexpectedly, with _i couldnt find the care instructions so i hand-washed them._

 _Thank you,_ Harrow texts back. She has to force her fingers to tap out the words. To make herself feel better, she adds, _You better not have done anything weird with them._

 _define weird_ . It's not the most reassuring text Harrow has ever read, but it's followed up a few minutes later with _how can i give them back_ , which almost makes up for it.

She mulls it over as she gets off her bus, unlocks the door to the big empty house she lives in alone, and locks it again behind her.

The problem is that Gideon knows her address.

At least she doesn't know she knows, Harrow consoles herself. Which will last right up until she gives Gideon her address, because they went to high school together and Harrow hasn't moved. At all. Ever.

There's nothing for it; the alternative is telling Gideon to keep the underwear, and Harrow isn't quite ready to do that. She types in the address, reasoning that her name is on the property records anyway. Maybe, for the first time in her miserable existence, Gideon will turn out to be useful. The idea shouldn't appeal to Harrow. It does anyway.

 _youre on my way home from work,_ Gideon replies immediately. _tomorrow ok?_

It's a rare Friday they don't have a performance. Harrow considers fabricating an excuse, but she also doesn't want to leave Gideon running around town with her underwear. _Fine._

She presses send before she can overthink the decision.

* * *

After work on Friday, Harrow paces in front of her closet. She refuses to change for Gideon Nav on principle, but Gideon’s reaction to the garter belt is gnawing away at her resolve.

In the end, her phone buzzes before she can make any terrible, rash decisions involving complicated lingerie. She answers the door in her work clothes. Gideon is standing on the porch in jeans and a leather jacket, a motorcycle helmet tucked under her arm. 

"Come in," says Harrow, stiffly.

Gideon steps over the threshold. She looks wrong in the monochrome grey of the entrance hall in February. It's past dusk, and she can still get the yellow streetlights to catch out the color in her hair, her eyes. Even her jeans, light-wash faded denim, look too colorful in Harrow's home.

She holds out a little gift bag. It's aggressively pink.

Harrow takes it warily and peeks inside. Gideon has folded Harrow's underwear between thin sheets of white tissue paper. "What is wrong with you, Nav?"

"They were short on severed hands at the store.” Gideon shrugs. “I thought about putting them in a Ziploc bag, but if my co-workers saw them I would never hear the end of it.”

Harrow knows Gideon is messing with her. Gideon has never done anything else. But she does not want Gideon’s co-workers commenting on her underwear, either. She lays the uneasy thought that Gideon might have been considerate in addition to annoying aside. At least she isn’t drunk tonight. It makes it a little bit easier to cope.

It's still not enough, not with Gideon Nav standing in her foyer. Harrow narrows her eyes. "Is this all an excuse to get me to ask you over?"

"Not really." Gideon rakes a hand back through her hair. "But did it work?"

Harrow's stomach lurches. She knows better than this. "Take off your boots," she says. "You’d better not track slush on my floors."

She waits watchfully as Gideon kneels on the floor to unlace her boots. This version of Gideon, Gideon on her knees, feels right. Gideon sheds her jacket, leaves it draped over Harrow's coat rack, next to the helmet, and rolls her shoulders back so that Harrow can hear the snap of the joints.

"Come on." Harrow thinks that, maybe, if she focuses on keeping Gideon under control, she can avoid thinking about why she's doing this.

Gideon follows her on socked feet through the dark, empty hallways, up the staircase, and to Harrow's bedroom before Harrow remembers that she has guest rooms that are far less personal. But she hasn't put on fresh sheets on those infrequently-used beds in months. She's a busy woman. 

Anyway, it's too late now, because Gideon is standing in her bedroom, surrounded by the relics of Harrow's childhood and looking hesitant.

Harrow can't bear how soft she looks, in spite of all the muscles and the thick denim of her jeans. "Take those off," she says, pointing at Gideon.

Gideon pulls off her tank top in a single motion and reaches for her fly.

Harrow holds up her hand. "Stop."

Gideon freezes, zipper half down.

It's safe again, Gideon the same cocksure douchebag Harrow has known for as long as she can remember, and Harrow has, again, made her lose her footing. Harrow wants to stand there, admiring the object she has turned Gideon into. "Stay," Harrow says instead, and delicately pulls off a glove.

This, at least, she knows how to do; Dulcinea and Abigail and Coronabeth all use gloves in their routines. (Sometimes Palamedes does as well, but Harrow wants to make the feeble wiring of Gideon's brain short out, not inspire it to greater heights of cogitation.)

"If you want this to continue," says Harrow, laying the first glove on the thick wooden top of her dresser, "you will keep my secrets and your silence."

Catching Gideon's eyes in the mirror, Harrow sees with satisfaction that Gideon is again undone and lays the second glove next to its mate.

She unbuttons her blouse, slowly, Gideon pinned behind her like a dead butterfly. "I don't want anyone to know I'm doing this with you."

She slides the black fabric down her back, exposing bony shoulder blades that stick out like amputated wings. They aren't attractive, not by any metric Harrow has ever seen, but Gideon draws in a sharp breath.

"But you want to fuck me." Gideon's voice has gone thick with desire.

Harrow unhooks her trousers, steps out of them and her flats in one smooth movement. In her underwear, she turns to face her. "You're convenient," she says. They haven't ever made it to a bed before.

"I completely fucking hate you." Gideon stands there, statue-still, where Harrow put her.

Harrow meets her, glare for glare. It's ridiculous-- they're both half-naked. Harrow can feel the tension palpable between them. "Do you really want to have this out now, Griddle? Or do you want to do something more interesting?" It's an old nickname and it has the desired result: Gideon chokes.

When she can breathe again, Gideon asks: "What happens if I agree?"

In response, Harrow unhooks the front clasp of her bra.

"Next time, I want to do that," says Gideon, reaching out with both hands to pull Harrow in by the hips.

"So we are agreed?" Harrow can feel the heat of Gideon's skin on her chest, even though they're barely touching. She's slightly breathless, and almost manages to conceal the fact.

"Yeah," says Gideon. 

The single word echoes off the walls of Harrow's bedroom for three long beats, like they're pacing off in a duel. Then, on an unspoken signal, they dive for each other.

Harrow ends up flat on her back under Gideon's excessive bulk. Gideon has imposed a knee between Harrow's thighs. It makes her want to fight, to bite and scratch so Gideon will let her go before she embarrasses herself. In this situation, she suspects Gideon will misinterpret the gesture. She goes limp on the bed.

Gideon smooths the straps of Harrow's bra down over her arms. It's caught behind her, and Gideon abandons it to cup rough palms over Harrow's breasts, hands so big that Harrow feels even smaller.

Gideon's porn collection isn't secret, to the consternation of nearly the entire population of their high school. As a result, Harrow knows the kinds of breasts Gideon looks at in her spare time. She knows hers doesn't even come close to measuring up, and she's ready for Gideon to make a cutting remark.

It never comes. Instead, Gideon bends her head and sucks a nipple into her mouth. Harrow's back comes clean off the bed. There's a high-pitched noise, and eventually Harrow realizes she's making it herself. She strangles it.

In retaliation, she digs her nails into Gideon's shoulders. Instead of complaining, Gideon makes an appreciative rumbly sound in her chest and switches breasts.

It's vastly unfair that Gideon knows things about Harrow's body that she, Harrow, doesn't know, like how to make the muscles in her stomach jump with the simple application of mouth to breast. She feels overheated, like she's going to set the bed on fire, and hopes that if she does the fire will take Gideon with her.

“No kissing,” she says as Gideon moves down her body. Gideon switches from using her lips to using her teeth, biting little pinpricks of sensation into Harrow's belly.

Harrow tries not to squirm as Gideon settles between her thighs. As if there's nowhere more comfortable than stretched out, halfway off Harrow's bed, dragging Harrow’s underwear off again. This is not a sensation Harrow ever expected to learn, but now she knows it: the way Gideon's thumb hooks under the band, the way it feels to lift her hips in complicity.

"This time, don't steal them," Harrow says. Her voice is cooperating, at least, smooth and slightly biting. She has excellent vocal control.

"I don't want your panties, Nonagesimus," says Gideon, looking at Harrow with discomfiting intensity. She balls up the underwear and tosses them over her shoulder. They bounce off Harrow's closet door.

Then Gideon bends her head again, and Harrow's hips come off the bed.

This is better than it was in the bathroom at a karaoke bar. This is Gideon, single-minded and obstinate, trying to dissolve Harrow's brain through the persistent application of tongue to clit. Gideon, who catches Harrow's thighs to lift her hips to the exact best angle.

It turns out Harrow does not have excellent vocal control after all. Harrow screams.

Gideon’s fingertips tighten on Harrow's legs. 

She definitely can hear it. She would hear if she was wearing earplugs, topped them off with noise-canceling headphones. It's loud, nearly twenty years of vocal training let off the leash by a badly-trained ginger who probably doesn't even know how to spell the word 'dignity', let alone possess any.

Worst of all, Harrow can't quite seem to stop screaming.

She can't tell Gideon that it's too much, too good. There are reasons why Harrow walls herself away from the world with gloves and blazers and lingerie. She is a black hole of self-destructive neediness, greedily absorbing touch into herself. 

Gideon, blithely unaware of any of this, weathers the torrent of Harrow's wailing, bringing her up and over, again and again.

Harrow can do nothing but scream until Gideon stops.

The movement Gideon makes to transport herself back up the bed is familiar. Palamedes, Camilla, and Jeannemary move the same way across the floor of the stage. It’s sinuous, athletic, captivating. Gideon shouldn’t be allowed to move like that.

The look in her eyes is familiar, too. Victory. Harrow knows it from every time Gideon Nav upstaged her in school.

That, more than anything, spurs Harrow into motion. "On your back, Nav," she demands.

Victory must make Gideon complacent, because she rolls obediently. Harrow bites into Gideon's collarbone and fights her hand into Gideon's unzipped jeans.

She almost misses the instant of shock on Gideon's face, like she didn't expect Harrow to reciprocate.

"I do have manners, Griddle," she says, keeping the edge in her voice. "When the situation merits it." She remembers, from that one hazy night in college, that Gideon likes it a little bit rough, and presses, two fingers inside her and her thumb rubbing carefully to help things along. There's damp cloth on the back of her hand to complement the rising exhilaration that she, Harrow, has finally managed to wreck Gideon.

Gideon swears incoherently, meaningless profanity bubbling up like blood from the very back of her throat. That lasts for about half a minute before she comes so violently Harrow has to yank her hand away to avoid the sloppily-directed force of Gideon's muscles.

They lie there, panting in the aftermath.

Harrow collects her limbs and arranges them on the section of bed she has allotted herself. Gideon takes up an outrageous amount of space, but that doesn't mean they have to touch any more than necessary.

They lie there, careful inches apart, catching their breath. No one swears. No one screams. The silence is its own kind of bliss.

"I didn't realize you still performed," says Gideon, a while later. She's looking, casually, at one of the boards on the wall where Harrow has tacked up playbills.

It's pointless to lie. "I have always performed."

"I remember you sang in school," says Gideon, hoisting herself up onto an elbow to invade Harrow's personal space. "Can I come to one of your shows?"

"Under no circumstances may you come to any of my shows." 

Clearly, Gideon has seen some of the pictures on the playbills. Probably the ones that feature Coronabeth. Gideon has always been predictable. 

Harrow changes the subject. "Would you like something to drink? Tea? Water?"

"Water would be great," says Gideon, heaving out of the bed so the entire frame vibrates.

Harrow bundles herself into a robe like a sensible human and leads the way to the kitchen.

Gideon doesn't bother to dress. She shucks off her jeans instead of pulling them back up and pads downstairs in her underwear, even though Harrow keeps her house cold at night in the winter. 

Harrow passes her a glass from the cupboard in silence. She doesn't know what to say. Shadows fill her kitchen and suffocate any chance at conversation. It's better that way, Harrow decides, her fingertips poised on the light switch.

In the dark, Gideon fills the glass at the tap. Tilting her head back, she downs the whole thing in about two and a half seconds.

Silently, Harrow watches her throat work.

When the glass is empty, Gideon leans back on the counter, her eyes almost as dark as Harrow's in the low light. She has made herself at home in Harrow's kitchen. "Done already, Nonagesimus?" 

The implication is clear. Warmth rises in Harrow, twin forces of lust and competition. She scoffs. "Only if you're tired."

Gideon refills the glass and passes it, full, to Harrow. "You're gonna need to drink this."

“Don’t flatter yourself, Nav,” says Harrow, but she drinks the water.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Sara ([@vandalwithoutacause](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vandalwithoutacause)) for fielding my unsavvy motorcycle questions with expertise and aplomb. All errors are my own.

Harrow doesn't know how long she's been acting differently, because Ianthe is the person who finally says something to her.

"Good to see you're finally getting laid, Nonagesimus," she says, right before curtain the first Friday in March. She smirks until the instant she parts the curtain to announce Harrow.

Harrow can't react. She's already in position for the song that will set the tone for the entire show, makeup and costume immaculate from the tips of her gloves to the polished toes of boots that lace securely all the way up her calf.

She performs, perfectly, the same way she's performed every day for ever, or close enough to forever. There's no space to process Ianthe's comment onstage, so she doesn't. She just sings, drawing the audience with her into a new world that she constructs note by exquisite note.

After she gets offstage, she locks herself into a bathroom stall and sets a timer on her phone for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to allow herself to feel all the shock and betrayal, and then she'll put the mask back on. 

If Ianthe knows, the rest of the troupe knows, too. Likely, Harrow's love life has been an object of speculation amongst the only people with opinions Harrow might even consider. It makes her want to scream, but instead she just wraps her arms around herself in the stall and rocks, willing it out of existence.

Harrow is no stranger to people talking about her. When her parents died, whispers surrounded her, cutting off only when she passed directly by the other ten-year-olds in her class. No one knew how to talk to the bereaved ten-year-old, so they talked about her instead. Harrow started wearing black in self-defense. Bright t-shirts mouldered at the back of her wardrobe until she outgrew them. Harrow never bothered to replace them.

The second time she'd been the particular object of gossip had been three years later and three orders of magnitude worse. It had been a dare, at a party, the entire grade absolutely fascinated with kissing. They hadn't even been playing spin-the-bottle, which would have at least spread the prurient fascination out amongst the rest of the group. Neither was there alcohol to blame.

"Nonagesimus," Gideon had said, flanked by some of her cronies from the soccer team. "I dare you to kiss me."

"Why would I ever kiss you?" Harrow asked, even though she wondered about exactly that, huddled under her covers and praying that the "aunts" she'd bribed into standing as her guardians wouldn't come into her room.

"See, I told you she'd be too scared," Gideon told her friends.

"I am not!" Harrow had marched over and pulled Gideon down by the ears so that she could reach her face. Her cheeks were warm against Harrow's fingertips. Gideon's arms came around her, wrapping Harrow up in the kind of hug she had never gotten from her parents.

It was not a good kiss-- sloppy, too wet, and Harrow had no idea what to do with her nose-- but that hardly mattered when Gideon pulled her close, sheltering Harrow's bony limbs against the warmth and bulk Gideon had always had, even in her gangly stage.

When they broke apart, Harrow was breathless.

"Ew, gross," Gideon said with lips that looked just a little bit softer than usual. There was a smudge of Harrow's lip gloss at the corner of her mouth.

"You're probably diseased," spat Harrow, humiliated. "I am going to wash my hands."

After that, Harrow had started wearing gloves. No one Harrow had met after she entered high school had ever seen her without them, not even her primary care physician.

Her timer goes off, the tinny alarm bouncing off the hard walls of the bathroom. That's all right. Harrow would rather have jangled nerves than a head full of Ianthe's judgement.

* * *

She asks Palamedes after the show.

"Ah." He whips off his glasses and starts to polish them on his scarf. "We had planned not to tell you we knew."

"Why not?" demands Harrow. "Why would you let Ianthe--"

"I know this is difficult for you to believe," says Palamedes, hooking his glasses back on, "but we want you to be happy.” He pauses for a long moment. "I was concerned that if you knew we knew, you would stop seeing them."

"I'm not _seeing_ anyone," Harrow says. "It's just sex."

"I know my blessing doesn't mean anything to you," says Palamedes, "but if whatever you're doing continues to make you happy, you have it."

Harrow doesn’t see what that has to do with anything. It warms her anyway.

* * *

Harrow doesn’t put on lingerie just so that Gideon Nav can take it off her. Admittedly, they have made an appointment for that evening, after they're both done with work. But Harrow has nice things because she likes them.

She's chosen a set from what she's designated as her special-occasions collection. This is growth; she is no longer hoarding these pieces until they molder away with disuse. It has nothing to do with the way Gideon lets her lead her around with ribbons.

Regular sex had never been one of Harrow’s priorities. Apparently, it’s one of Gideon’s; Harrow gets texts from her two or three times a week. 

Harrow has rehearsal two nights a week, shows on Fridays or Saturdays or, more rarely, both. Gideon occasionally has conflicts, too, though Harrow darkly suspects she's manufactured at least some of them. Even so, slightly more than half of Gideon’s text messages culminate in Gideon lying flat on her back, naked and sweaty in Harrow’s bedroom.

It’s flattering, Harrow decides, even if it is Gideon.

* * *

That evening, after the first round, they lie twined together. Harrow’s too fucked-out to move away. Her legs are still vibrating. She’s warm. These are all excuses, and she knows it.

As her limbs return to her control, she discovers new reasons to stay where she is. Gideon’s thigh presses between hers, heavy against Harrow’s overstimulated flesh, and she begins tracing the outline of Harrow’s bra.

“Are you busy Friday?” Gideon asks, thumb brushing over Harrow’s nipple through the cup.

This is new. They don’t talk about their assignations in person; Gideon texts and Harrow eventually relents. Harrow gropes for an objection to this new development, her search hampered by electric pulses of sensation. 

And then Gideon stops. Harrow arches under her, but Gideon doesn’t move, hand poised, letting time and Harrow’s building need make her argument for her. 

“I’m performing,” she says at last, before she can do something truly embarrassing, like moan while Gideon isn’t even actually touching her.

Then Gideon rolls over her, presses her face into Harrow’s shoulder, and Harrow forgets about the conversation entirely, too busy being pleased that Gideon only makes her scream twice.

She doesn’t remember the conversation again until it’s too late.

* * *

It’s a small venue this week. No one cares about goth burlesque in mid-March, too busy getting plastered on cheap beer with green food coloring in it. The entire troupe hates the slow season, except Palamedes, who likes trying out new acts for low-stakes audiences. 

Camilla complains that they get weirder every year, but she’s also the only one who ever understands them in the first iteration. Harrow avoids finding out about that relationship as much as she possibly can in a group that spends three or four nights a week together.

Tonight’s Palamedes Special involves a half-dozen inflatable pool floats in novelty shapes. As usual, Harrow doesn’t get it. She'll ask later, he'll light up and explain, and then they'll argue. They get some of their best acts that way.

Normally, they’re all used to it and it’s not a problem, even when they have to squash past a giant inflated rainbow unicorn with dramatic eyeliner drawn on in Sharpie. This time, however, there’s a single tiny dressing room, and after everyone’s gotten their costumes on, Palamedes and Camilla closet themselves in it to wrestle with the props.

That’s why, when Harrow comes offstage, the Disaster Teens are whispering amongst themselves practically in the audience, even though there’s only one number before they go on. She glares at them: the venue may be a crappy bar, but there is such a thing as professionalism.

“It’s the redhead from karaoke,” Isaac informs her as he scuttles to the narrow hallway that constitutes the wings.

“With the muscles,” adds Jeannemary, in tones of utterly inappropriate awe.

“Places,” Harrow hisses at them, “or I’ll tell Magnus.”

They scamper off promptly. Satisfied, Harrow goes to see for herself. 

Gideon has installed herself in a seat close to the wall. She’s lounging against it in a posture that suggests she’s undertaken the futile effort to occupy only the normal amount of space. Even so, she has no business being here.

Unwilling to brave the maze of inflated vinyl, Harrow has shoved her phone into the depths of her corset. She digs it out, powers it on, and composes an urgent text message, demanding that Gideon explain her presence.

She waits until Babs finishes his act and presses send while Ianthe is introducing Isaac and Jeannemary. If Gideon’s phone goes off, Ianthe deserves the interruption after the stunt she pulled last week.

Gideon’s phone does not go off, so Harrow texts again in a state of increasing agitation.

There's no response until intermission. Gideon appears to be rapt, especially as Dulcinea takes the stage to wrap up the first act. The notification comes through as Harrow presses the power button to turn her phone back off. There's no way she's leaving it unattended: she trusts her troupe as much as she trusts anyone, but they're a bunch of artists with negligible impulse control.

She shoves it into her corset, the message she couldn't read burning against her skin as she takes the stage.

* * *

Palamedes stops her in the hallway. He's holding up a neon pink inflatable coffin, which makes it nearly impossible to take him seriously. "Are you okay?" he asks.

Harrow freezes. "Was my act--"

"No one would notice anything if they didn't know you," he says, as if that makes it better. As if he has ever, even for one second, seen Harrow relax the standards she sets for herself.

This is exactly why she didn't want Gideon to come, because Gideon has succeeded where Ianthe failed. All Harrow has to show for it is a terse text message that reads _cant text watching the show_ , which hardly suffices when Gideon has shown up doing the only thing Harrow has forbidden her to do. Well, perhaps 'no kissing' also counts as a prohibition, but Gideon doesn't seem to care about that one. She hasn't asked since that first night in the bar.

Harrow doesn't dare answer Palamedes, not with her composure in tatters. She stalks to the back of the bar, shadows pulled on over her cloak, and plans exactly how she's going to wring Gideon's neck. 

After Camilla's sword dance-- during which Gideon has apparently forgotten that she's trying to be polite, her terrible shoulders encroaching upon the seat adjacent-- Harrow sends another text message. Again, nothing.

Leave it to Gideon to pick and choose the rules of etiquette least convenient to Harrow.

They are both subjected to Palamedes's pool floats dance. After seeing it properly, from the front, Harrow hypothesizes that it's about crass commercialization and the death of integrity or some such nonsense, but it doesn't quite work. She makes a mental note to discuss it with him once she's rid the venue of a certain ginger menace, and adjusts her position so that she can furtively observe Gideon's face in shadowy quarter-profile.

Gideon just looks bored, which is a small blessing.

And then Abigail comes out, all soft matronly curves and librarian glasses. It's fine for the first half of the act, and then she lets her prim, starched blouse fall to the floor, and with it goes Gideon's jaw.

Fuming, Harrow tries to reason with herself. Abigail has practiced that over-the-glasses come-hither look in Magnus's basement to perfection. Financially, the troupe exists to facilitate this act. Harrow knows this intellectually. It doesn't stop her from wanting to rip all the skin from Gideon's face for looking at Abigail like that.

It gets worse. Harrow knows the set order. She tries to brace herself. Gideon's entire posture changes when the curtain comes up on Coronabeth's Queen of Coins and Vampires schtick.

Gideon isn't the only person in the audience who goes slack with lust when Coronabeth runs a finger down Babs's throat before she mimes ripping it out. Not the only person who can't take their eyes off of Corona's décolletage, entirely ignoring the body she's left in an awkward pile stage left.

It's just that Gideon is the only person who _shouldn't_ be eyefucking Coronabeth’s cleavage. For one thing, Gideon shouldn't be here at all. For another, Gideon is _hers_. She can’t be looking like that at Corona and Cam and-- and Abigail, of all people-- if they’re going to be fucking later. It doesn’t matter that they hate each other. If Gideon wants a girlfriend, she can fish in another pool. Not Harrow’s.

In no possible world will Coronabeth ever give Gideon the time of day, and of course Magnus and Abigail are devoted. Harrow tries to comfort herself with that thought. Annoyingly, it doesn't work.

More annoyingly, Gideon has carefully positioned herself so that Harrow would have to cut through an entire crowd of people to get to her. Harrow opts to lurk by the exit instead. Her troupe already knows something is up; with a little bit of care, Harrow hopes to keep them from learning what.

When Gideon leaves, Harrow darts after her, clamping her hand around Gideon's wrist like a vise. She drags them around the corner into a fetid little alley. It's cold out, but Harrow is hot with anger. "I told you not to come here!"

Gideon shrugs, unconcerned. "I don't see how it matters to you."

"We agreed that you wouldn't tell anyone that we're fucking."

Gideon meets her eyes then in a blaze of amber, yellow from streetlights and shadows. "I haven't told anyone. Where's your coat?"

Harrow reels at the nonsequitur. "What does that have to do with--"

"You're freezing." 

Harrow stands transfixed as Gideon shrugs off her jacket and wraps it around Harrow's quaking shoulders. The jacket is heavy; it smells of motor oil and Gideon. She knows from experience that underneath Gideon’s long-sleeve henley there's a tank top and a bandeau, layers of muscle, and the kind of warmth that can make even Harrow’s oversized bed hospitable in the winter.

"I can't take this." There's already steam rising from Gideon's shoulders. The coat smells the way Gideon smells when she comes over, before they fuck, and apparently Harrow has forged a scent association. It’s distracting. Harrow can't afford distractions.

"Then go get your own coat."

Harrow pauses, considers. Takes Gideon's jacket back off and thrusts it at her. "Wait here," she orders, and then runs.

It takes long minutes to retrieve her coat; she has to barrel through the dregs of her troupe. Thankfully, the Tridentarius twins have already left, taking their trained monkey with them, and Magnus and Abigail are in the process of hustling Isaac and Jeannemary out the door. All Harrow has to do is wave, and they're gone.

In the tiny dressing room, Camilla and Palamedes are wrestling with drooping pool floats. Even Dulcinea reclines half-heartedly on a slowly-sinking enormous donut. Harrow's coat is on the far side of the room.

She grits her teeth and starts to cross the room.

"What are you doing here?" asks Camilla.

"Getting my coat," says Harrow, and then, to forestall any additional discussion, "I need to go."

Camilla slants a skeptical look over the four-foot-tall deflated corpse of an eyelinered rubber duck.

"I thought you were leaving early," Palamedes puts in, gently. "The last bus left fifteen minutes ago."

Harrow swears under her breath and extricates her coat from under a folded pile of vinyl that might once have been a hot dog. The walk home isn't gruesome. She's done it before, on nights like this, and in colder weather. It's just another irritation on a towering pile.

She needs to deal with this Gideon problem, get her out from under her skin so that she can concentrate on normal life things, such as _not missing the goddamn bus_.

It's in this delightful mood that she slams around the corner to find Gideon still there, slouched up against the wall and playing a match-three game on her phone while wearing fingerless leather gloves. She looks cold, and Harrow has to quash the urge to press the bare fingertips between her gloved palms.

Gideon shoves her phone, and her hands, in her pockets. "You look like shit."

"I missed my bus." Harrow tries to shrug it off. 

"I can give you a ride," says Gideon immediately. "And then we can talk where it's warm."

Harrow can't think of a reasonable objection, so she agrees.

She regrets it almost immediately, because it turns out that Gideon drives a motorcycle.

"I can walk," says Harrow, eying the machine with reasonable trepidation.

"I'm not waiting around in the cold for you to walk home," says Gideon. "I made the offer; take it or leave it." She holds out a helmet.

Harrow hesitates, and then she takes the helmet. When she puts it on, she immediately recognizes the problem: it’s Gideon’s helmet. “Griddle,” Harrow says in tones of warning.

“Save the safety lecture.” Gideon swings astride the bike. “It’s two miles. We’ll live.”

Privately, Harrow is not at all sure of that. She climbs on behind Gideon anyway. It’s not as uncomfortable as she’d expected.

“Hold on tight and don’t step down until I tell you it’s okay,” says Gideon.

Before Harrow can respond, Gideon turns the engine over. The sound hits her like a physical blow, cutting through the quiet of the night. Muscles tense on either side of her spinal column, C7 vertebra all the way down to her tailbone. 

“Relax!” Gideon yells over the noise of the engine. Harrow can _hear_ the shit-eating grin.

She does her best to unknot her back, but she has to grab on to Gideon, and that isn’t precisely soothing. Neither is the vibration emanating from the seat under her. 

Intellectually, she knows the ride lasts less than fifteen minutes. It feels far longer. Every time they go around a corner, her adrenaline spikes and she has to fight to avoid clinging to Gideon. It’s too late for her to push away the sheer torrent of sensation crowding her: wind in Gideon’s red hair like a flag, smooth leather stretched over Gideon’s rippling back, Gideon’s shampoo in her nose, Gideon’s hips between her thighs.

“We’re here. You can let go.” Gideon’s fingertips are so cold Harrow can feel them through her gloves. When she realizes that Gideon is gently prying Harrow’s death grip apart, she shakes herself into action and climbs awkwardly to solid ground.

“Thank you,” she says, the words dry-leaf brittle against her tongue. She pulls off the helmet and hands it back to Gideon, who tucks it under her arm and cocks her head. Her smile is lopsided and hungry. 

“Gonna ask me in?”

Harrow jerks her head toward the door and strides down the path, unlocking the door without waiting to see if Gideon is following her.

She is, of course. She locks Harrow’s door behind her without being asked as Harrow drops her coat on the hallway table. It has a peg that Harrow almost never uses; Gideon hangs her own coat on it.

Harrow startles when she realizes how _normal_ this is. She wants to shout at Gideon for interrupting her routines; she wants to stab her for becoming one of them. More than either of those things, she wants to fuck. Uncertainty and terror have drained away, leaving her hollow and aroused.

Gideon seems to have the same idea: they’re unlacing boots in tandem. 

Barefoot, Harrow throws her jacket and skirts in a pile over her coat and begins to work on her corset lacing.

Gideon, stripped down to her tank top, motions for Harrow to turn around.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Harrow asks. She’s turning anyway, which should probably worry her.

“Unlace, then unhook,” says Gideon, so close to Harrow’s neck that her breath makes the fine hairs at the base of her skull stand up. “I’ve watched you.”

Her fingers are in the small of Harrow’s back, deft. Harrow makes the mistake of looking in the entrance-hall mirror, chosen for the weight the dark Gothic carvings on its frame brings to the space. It’s a mistake. The very tip of Gideon’s tongue is extended in concentration.

Harrow catches the corset as it loosens and falls. She pulls it over her head and lays it on the pile, leaving her standing inside her own front door in a sheer chemise. Her gloves are still on.

“I can’t believe you wear all this to a burlesque show and keep it hidden,” says Gideon, running her hands down Harrow’s sides.

The moment is perilously intimate. Harrow hunches her shoulders. 

All that accomplishes is Gideon's hands settle low on Harrow's hips, stroking the line of lace that connects her hip bones.

If she lets Gideon do that for even another fifteen seconds, she'll forget everything she needs to say.

“Don’t come to my shows,” she says. That’s the only thing that matters. 

Gideon scrapes her teeth over the flesh of Harrow’s shoulder. “There is literally nothing you can do to stop me.”

“You agreed you wouldn’t tell anyone we’re fucking.”

"And I didn't.” Gideon’s hands come up her belly in the mirror. “I didn’t even talk to anyone until you _went and found me at a public event_.”

Unfortunately, Gideon has a point. Also, she has terrible hands: they’re tracing the bottom line of Harrow’s rib cage, and the fabric of her chemise scrapes against her nipples until they go hard.

Letting Gideon take off her corset was a mistake. It’s a performer’s nightmare: she’s onstage and in the audience at once, wearing the wrong costume, one that reveals too much. Her sworn enemy stands at her back, close enough to slide the dagger into her kidneys. 

Technically, Harrow’s still covered, neck to toes-- stockings and gloves; even the chemise has long sleeves-- but somehow, this is _worse_ than just being naked. Maybe it’s the mirror, maybe it’s the way Gideon won’t stop _looking_ at her, but without her corset boning as armor, she feels utterly naked.

Moving her hands up, Gideon finds Harrow’s nipples with her thumbs. They’re not hidden; it’s cold in the hall. Even the first tentative brush makes her thighs clench in response. Harrow’s head hits Gideon’s upper pectorals with a meaty thunk. 

Gideon catches her as she falls back. Her hands are blazingly hot; their palms splay out over Harrow’s ribs as Gideon presses them flat. Gideon has never complained about the size of Harrow’s breasts, but neither has she ever made the face she made during Coronabeth’s act when she’s been with Harrow. 

Harrow studies Gideon’s face in the mirror: she’s not sure she’s ever seen her look like this before. There’s intensity there; a kind of ferocious concentration that Harrow wants to deflect even as she reaches back to drag Gideon closer.

Taking this as encouragement, Gideon takes firm hold of Harrow’s nipples and pinches. 

Harrow keens and arches so hard that she nearly knocks them both off balance. Her vision blurs; Gideon steadies her.

Gideon bends down so that her lips brush the shell of Harrow’s ear, hair appallingly red and mingling with Harrow’s like a tumor. “I like hearing your voice.”

That horrifying revelation hits her like an epidural full of liquid nitrogen. Harrow wrenches herself away on shaky legs. “You can’t say that.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she studies the crown molding. There’s no other safe spot to look.

Holding up her hands, Gideon backs away. “Should I go?”

Harrow risks a glance at Gideon, squarely turning her back to the mirror. “That would be best.” She cuts each consonant to perfect crisp clarity, so there is no confusion.

Gideon puts on her jacket in silence. “See you.” She raises one hand in an awkward wave, cradling her helmet loosely on the opposite hip, and then turns away.

Harrow watches the door close behind her. Listens for the sound of Gideon’s motorcycle fade into the distance. Turns the lock and goes upstairs, alone, to bed.

It should be a relief.


	4. Chapter 4

Harrow wakes up to a text from Gideon. _are you okay?_

That is always a loaded question. Gideon has never asked it of her before, and she doesn’t know how to answer.

Palamedes wields the question like a scalpel. He always wants a precise and accurate answer, and it is always clear from the context what it refers to. Harrow answers accordingly.

By contrast, when Magnus asks it, the only safe answer is “yes”, especially if Harrow isn’t actually okay. He tries to _fix_ things, and that has a multiplier effect on whatever disaster is currently happening. It’s just as clear how to answer.

If a Tridentarius asks it, either one, Harrow gears up for a fight.

No one else ever asks. (Rather than asking, Camilla judges for herself what help you need and then provides it, whether you want it or not.)

So, when Gideon asks, Harrow is lost. 

She ignores the text message. 

Gideon doesn’t text again.

* * *

At their next show, Harrow catches Isaac and Jeannemary in urgent, huddled conversation about biceps and redheads.

She lurks backstage, carefully avoiding finding Gideon in the audience, even when Ianthe plants an elbow in her ribs and pretends it’s an accident.

Later, Gideon texts her: _great show. does that guy always do weird stuff?_

Harrow suppresses a snicker. There's no way to explain Palamedes' act in a text message. So she doesn't.

* * *

By the time the show rolls around the weekend after that, she’s considering whether she should text Gideon. Not about Palamedes or sex or, most unthinkably, her own mental state. About something else, something innocuous. So far, she’s managed to resist temptation. It helps that she can't think of any subject that stays innocuous when subjected to the presence of Gideon Nav.

She works, she sings, Gideon doesn't text. It's as normal as her life ever is.

Halfway into the second act, she realizes that something is wrong: the Disaster Twins have cornered Magnus. She very carefully does not check in the audience to see if Gideon is there. She already knows the answer.

“She’s here again,” Isaac is saying. “Can we invite her backstage?”

Dark suspicions, lurking in the back of Harrow’s mind, begin to thrash and roil.

“Pleeeease, Maaaaagnuuuuuus,” adds Jeannemary.

The venue is tiny, and thankfully Magnus lays down the law: no visitors backstage here. But Jeannemary and Isaac are persistent, and Harrow is-- not scared. Wary. At least she has time to prepare.

* * *

The next week the venue is much larger. Without much hope, Harrow says a small prayer that Gideon will not show up.

At the end of the show, Harrow emerges from the dressing room where she’s been discreetly out of the way. Gideon is already backstage, hauling an enormous box of props out to Dulcinea’s seafoam green VW Bug. Gideon has been tripping over her own feet to get the attention of pretty girls for years; it shouldn’t hurt any more now than it ever has.

Palamedes, watching these carryings-on with an air of tolerant amusement, catches Harrow’s eye. Apparently, that's enough to spill all Harrow's secrets out on the floor. He pushes his glasses up his nose, grabs for Camilla's hand and draws her aside for a muttered conference. 

Harrow can’t tell if she’s grateful or angry. Rather than cope with it, she decides this is an excellent time to disappear into the bathroom to touch up her makeup.

When she gets out, Palamedes, Camilla, and Dulcinea have all gone. Coronabeth has taken over using Gideon for heavy lifting, with a speculative gleam in her eye. Jeannemary and Isaac are huddled in heated conversation as Gideon lifts a box heavy enough to make her muscles bulge. Harrow doesn’t know how heavy that is; it doesn't belong to anyone in the troupe. They're going to be in so much trouble with the venue.

Magnus clears his throat. "Harrow, good to see you. Can I introduce you to--"

Harrow has no intention of making up a lie and trying to keep track of it, even if she were assured of Gideon's cooperation. She cuts Magnus off. "Oh, I've known Griddle since we were in grade school." 

Gideon looks poleaxed: Harrow has acknowledged her voluntarily. Which just proves that Gideon doesn’t know anything about a tight-knit theater troupe, the way everyone’s secrets get mashed into public knowledge the second you let them escape your control.

Magnus isn't quite sure what to make of this. "I'll leave you two to catch up," he says uncertainly. He herds Jeannemary and Isaac away from Coronabeth's unholy glee.

Slowly, Harrow smiles at Gideon, who goes pale and sets down her box.

"Sorry," she says to Coronabeth. Gideon knows very well what this particular smile means. 

Harrow reaches out a hand. Gideon, who is very occasionally not an idiot, doesn't take it.

That doesn't matter. Harrow walks around the corner, and Gideon follows her. 

It's always been like this between them: even though they hate each other, they can't stop sniping at one another. In school, Gideon had waited until the last minute to turn in her piece of their group assignment because she knew it made Harrow sweat. In retaliation, Harrow had picked the lock on Gideon’s gym locker and emptied two full gallons of ice water over the contents.

That one had actually backfired on her, because she'd had to spend the entirety of gym class that day looking at fabric plastered to Gideon's ridiculous muscles. It had been worth it, though, because of the look Gideon had made when she'd been forced to put clammy clothes on. Then Gideon had set off fireworks on the football field during one of Harrow’s solos and ruined everything again.

As soon as they're both out of view, Harrow stops abruptly. Gideon, as expected, barrels into range. Harrow darts out, clamps a vise like hand around Gideon's wrist, and hauls her through the nearest doorway.

It's a closet. The back wall holds a rack of industrial cleaners and toilet paper, but there's just enough room for the two of them. She shuts the door behind her, and dark swallows them up.

“What--" begins Gideon.

Harrow has no intention of discussing any of the things that have lingered unspoken between them over the last three weeks. She launches herself at Gideon and sinks her teeth into Gideon's shoulder, scrabbling at the hem of Gideon's shirt with one hand and the waistband of her jeans with the other.

Gideon catches her, wraps her up in arms that have no business being so warm.

"All right," says Gideon as Harrow gets the button undone, shoves her hand unceremoniously into Gideon's pants, finds her wet under her palm.

Well, Gideon has just watched a number of attractive women take off their clothes, and then some of them invited her backstage to meet them. Of course she’s responded to that.

Harrow drags her fingers ruthlessly across Gideon's overheated flesh. The troupe is the only thing Harrow has that's really hers. Gideon is not allowed to take it from her.

Gideon makes a low, needy sound. Her hands slide down, over Harrow's butt, and grip firmly. Harrow's feet leave the floor, and a moment later, her back hits the wall, Gideon pressing up against her.

Her wrist bends at a weird angle. She's fighting to unkink it when Gideon cups her face and kisses her.

All the noise in Harrow's brain goes quiet, because at some point since middle school, Gideon has learned how to kiss. It's dry, surprisingly gentle. A question, asked by Gideon smashing her face against Harrow's.

Harrow answers it with a soft, helpless moan. It's not her fault. They're pressed together, collarbone to patella. It's distracting.

It turns out to be what they both need, though, because Gideon shifts, Harrow gets her wrist to lie flat, and they start moving sloppily against each other.

Objectively, it's terrible. They're making out like teenagers in a broom closet, of all places. It's absolutely not going to get either of them off.

But Gideon is rubbing against Harrow's hand, kissing her gently, and holding her safe. It's alarmingly close to perfect. Harrow can’t stand it. There’s something ugly clawing at the inside of her rib cage, wanting to lash out.

Harrow bites at Gideon's lip, not even sure what she means to accomplish-- punishment or revenge or just hurting her. Whatever she wants, it isn't the groan Gideon makes into her mouth, and it definitely isn't the way Gideon bucks against her hand.

Or maybe it is, because Gideon keeps making these low sounds, like a wounded animal. Harrow’s other hand, which she'd meant to sneak into Gideon's bandeau, wraps around Gideon's back instead, fingernails digging in. It's not clinging, not when Gideon's breath is just as ragged as hers is.

Gideon scrabbles at the waistband of Harrow's skirt, hands gone clumsy. There are at least 15 tiny buttons between Gideon and her goal, but Harrow has no intention of pulling away long enough to tell her that. She'll figure it out eventually.

It takes several long, delicious minutes, Gideon making an array of noises into Harrow's mouth: frustration, desire, and combinations of the two that make Harrow's head whirl with possibility.

When Gideon finally gives up and cups Harrow through her clothes, that's good, too. 

Gideon runs her tongue on the inside of Harrow's teeth. It's weird and has no business making Harrows hips hitch. Nothing about this makes sense, but Harrow feels better with Gideon's hand between her thighs than she's felt in three weeks.

Before she can interrogate that horrible thought, the lights on outside the closet click off.

Gideon lets go of Harrow immediately. "Shit.”

"Ugh," says Harrow. They both scamper to escape the building before they're locked in overnight. At least this time she already has her coat.

"It's better in your bedroom," says Gideon, when they get outside. 

Harrow glares at her and pulls up her hood. It's raining, a horrible early-April drizzle. She's running late, but there's one more bus. She can make it if she hurries.

"You know you can text me, too," Gideon points out. "I've seen you do it. Even your pointy goblin fingers can work a touch screen."

"You weren't complaining about my fingers a minute ago," Harrow says. It's not the best rejoinder she's ever made, but it does the job.

"Harrow," she begins. It's been years since Gideon has called her that. Harrow holds her breath. She hasn't prepared for whatever verbal assault comes next.

The bus goes by, splashing them with dirty water and saving her from hearing it. It's worth it. Harrow pauses under the bus shelter, ready to hail a ride. Her fingers are wet on the touchscreen of her phone. She scrubs it against her sleeve.

Gideon rakes her hand back through her hair impatiently. "Don't be stupid, I'm right here." 

"Even your thick skull won’t survive a crash without a helmet," Harrow says. Besides, Gideon and her stupid motorcycle got them into this mess in the first place. But the argument is keeping her warm, so she follows Gideon as she strides across the parking lot through the drizzle.

Gideon has a second helmet clipped to her bike.

Harrow's stomach swoops. She knew Gideon wouldn't have to work too hard to replace her. It shouldn't surprise her now. She still can't prevent the persistent ache in her middle.

Her phone vibrates, and she looks down. She’s in luck: there’s a ride nearby, ETA two minutes. That’s far better than climbing on a bike with Gideon, wrapping her arms around abs that are still tense with arousal.

If she lets Gideon bring her home, they will have sex. They’re both too worked up to walk away from contact a second time, and Harrow wants Gideon to ache, too.

Her ride comes in a grey Honda Civic. Harrow leaves Gideon standing alone in a cold, wet parking lot.


	5. Chapter 5

Tuesday rehearsal is normal. No one says anything, not even Palamedes. Harrow breathes a sigh of relief.

It doesn't last. On Thursday, Coronabeth stretches languidly after a run-through. “Gingers, Harrow?” she asks.

Harrow ignores her. Corona only does it for the attention.

"If you're done with her, I may give her a call. She looks… athletic," Corona goes on.

The only thing worse than having to put up with Gideon in bed is having to deal with Gideon without getting sex out of it. Harrow levels a very cool glance at Coronabeth. "If you touch her, I will peel all the skin from your fingers and turn it into ribbons for Ianthe’s next birthday present. I will string together your phalanges, your carpals and your metacarpals together to make a necklace. I will--"

It's too much, even for their troupe. Palamedes cuts in. "Corona, leave it." 

He takes Harrow’s hand, when he knows and respects that Harrow hates being touched. She takes the rebuke seriously and forces the simmering rage back down.

She can’t quite box the feelings in. She needs an outlet. Luckily, she has a target. She steps out onto Magnus’s driveway. They’re almost done with rehearsal anyway-- Harrow just needs to wait for Palamedes to change out of his practice outfit into street clothes, because he usually gives her a ride home. 

Her thumbs hover over the keyboard. She refuses to give anything away, but there’s too much going on, and Gideon knows her too well. _Come over._ A demand, not a question. She sends it before she can overthink it any more.

Besides, Gideon told her to text. She's practically doing her a favor.

* * *

It can’t have been twenty minutes since the text message, but Gideon is waiting outside of Harrow’s house. She’s pacing, even though it’s warm out and Harrow has perfectly good deck furniture on her porch.

Harrow climbs out of the backseat of Palamedes’ car. Neither he nor Camilla are saying anything. Normally, she’d appreciate that.

This time, they’d stopped dead in the middle of an argument about the acceptable tolerances in lossy digital archival media. The front seat goes completely silent, leaving only the thin voice of the radio, tuned to a classical station, to echo in the space between them. Normally, she’d appreciate that, too.

As always, Gideon has soured the pleasure.

She wraps a hand around one of the pickets of her wrought-iron fence, letting the twisted metal cut into her palm. It grounds her as she waits for Palamedes’ Subaru to drive away.

Once it turns the corner, it feels safe to approach. As safe as it ever feels to approach Gideon.

She takes up so much space in Harrow’s tiny yard. Her hair is bright against dark shingles and dead bushes. Harrow cuts across the lawn at a diagonal and unlocks the door. 

The wood deck creaks under the heavy falls of Gideon’s boots behind her. She wrenches the door open before Gideon can touch her. They blow inside together like the wind before a thunderstorm.

Gideon is spoiling for a fight. 

Harrow can feel her heartbeat accelerate. She knows this version of Gideon, has known this version of Gideon almost as long as she’s known Gideon herself. She wants this, wants to give as good as she gets, wants to have this out with Gideon on her own turf.

She sheds layers as she goes, leaving shoes and coat and blazer in a trail on the ground behind her as she climbs the stairs. As she hopes, Gideon follows her. 

Her bedroom is messy. She’s left piles of clothes in the corners. There’s a tangle of sheets and blankets piled on one side of her unmade bed.

Gideon isn’t a guest. Harrow doesn’t need to clean for her.

The bedroom door slams shut. Gideon stands in front of it, eyes blazing, breathing hard. “You don’t own me.”

“And yet you’re here.” Harrow finishes unbuttoning her work shirt, drops it to the ground. She’s wearing work clothes today, practical and unadorned. For a moment, she worries that Gideon will have lost interest. There’s not a scrap of lace anywhere on her person, for once.

Gideon shrugs expansively. “So sue me.” She goes for Harrow’s belt buckle, drags the belt off. “This is sex, right?”

Harrow stops, hands frozen on the catch of her trousers. “Obviously.”

“Right,” says Gideon. “And that means that two people are involved.”

She means to ask what Gideon means, what idiocy Gideon has come up with this time. She can’t, because she’s in the air. Gideon has picked her up and thrown her face-first onto her own bed, is yanking off her undone trousers and her underwear all at once. 

“Don’t you dare--” Harrow begins, but Gideon isn’t done. Harrow finds herself with her shins halfway off the bed and her ass up in the air. She twists around as well as she can with Gideon’s implacably strong hands holding her hips in place. Watches, transfixed, as Gideon kneels on the floor behind her.

This is different from all the other times Gideon has knelt for Harrow. The difference, the newness, makes Harrow tremble. She free-falls, out of control, needing to wrest it back, desperate to know what will happen if she doesn’t. Even after all their history, Gideon can still surprise her. 

It should worry her. Her heart agrees, pulse rocketing. Her body throbs in warning, hot and urgent. But Harrow wants to know what happens next.

She watches, anticipation holding her fast just as much as Gideon's hands. Gideon leans in, face-first, the heat from her body close enough to feel on Harrow’s overheated flesh. The air in her throat snarls around her trachea, choking out the thread of the argument that she ought to make. 

Gideon’s tongue hits her clit. Harrow’s arms give out and she mashes her face into the mattress. No foreplay; Gideon has picked up exactly where Harrow cut them off after the show the previous weekend. Horrifying, because Harrow can feel the slide of Gideon’s mouth against her, and it’s too slick for saliva alone. This is terrible, this is thrilling; she hates it and she loves it.

At first, she tries to muffle the sounds-- swallowing them back, hiding them in the blankets. Her thighs tremble, and Gideon supports the rest of her weight, bracing her elbows in front of Harrow’s knees. 

It’s a relentless onslaught, and Harrow yields with as much grace as she can muster. There’s no point in fighting, not when this is everything Harrow has never wanted to admit wanting. It doesn’t erase anything that’s happened, but it renders everything outside the room irrelevant, from Coronabeth’s mockery to Palamedes’s understanding. There isn’t anyone else to see or hear this. No one else has to know.

She screams.

First she screams into the bed, muffling it, but then Gideon tightens her fingers on Harrow’s hips, inflects the angle just a little bit. It’s not the first adjustment Gideon has made, but it’s the right one. Everything locks into place and suddenly nothing else matters. Harrow tries to press back into Gideon’s face, but Gideon, solid as ever, holds her hips steady, licks long and slow and dirty. Harrow’s back arches instead, her cheek rubbing against the sheet, and she lets sound echo off the walls.

Her sense of time warps. It lasts forever, every second cross-sectioned into a thousand new sharp facets of pleasure. She’s screaming so loudly, it takes her endless minutes to realize that Gideon is right there with her, making desperate noises low in her throat right against Harrow’s cunt. She can’t call it harmony. It resonates anyway. 

It shouldn’t be this good. 

When Gideon lets her go, Harrow crawls the rest of the way up the bed and twists over onto her back. She needs to see.

The sight is terrifying. Gideon rears up onto the bed, still dressed, moving over Harrow’s prone form, with all that heat banked and focused into a single-minded determination. She plants one knee on either side of Harrow’s waist, the bulk of her weight settled across the lowest part of Harrow’s hips. It doesn’t hurt, to Harrow’s surprise; it’s just solid pressure.

She pulls off her shirt in one long fluid motion. Harrow reaches out, all that skin so close and so warm.

Gideon pushes Harrow’s shoulders back onto the mattress. The touch is light, but the intention is firm. “We can’t do this like this anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Harrow’s voice is a little scratchy around the edges. 

Gideon has both hands free, and they settle on Harrow’s breasts, doing something that makes it very hard for Harrow to think.

“I mean I want to go to your shows. If your friends want to talk to me, I don’t want you to stop them. If you would rather pretend I don’t exist, then we don’t have to do this anymore. But you can't decide everything for both of us."

Gideon has gotten really very good with her fingers, but Harrowhark Nonigesimus doesn’t beg. Please god, Harrow doesn’t beg. There are sounds bubbling up from the depths of her chest. Harrow squashes them. She doesn't trust herself to speak.

“Baseline standard of having no-strings-attached sex. You talk about what you want.”

Harrow waits for Gideon to go on, but Gideon has gone utterly still. She’s waiting for a response, waiting for Harrow’s mind to clear. “Fine,” she says, at last.

Gideon’s expression flickers, like she expected to have to fight harder, but then it’s back, cocksure and familiar and appallingly comforting. “You want to keep doing this?” she asks.

“I concede that you have some limited talents.” Harrow licks her lips. “Yes, I want to keep doing this.”

Gideon grins, and Harrow’s stomach lurches. “Tell me what you want, Harrow.”  
  
“Fuck you, Nav,” says Harrow, a bit breathlessly.

Apparently, that’s good enough. Gideon folds herself down Harrow’s body, settling comfortably between Harrow’s thighs. Harrow hisses; everything is overstimulated and it’s too much.

Gideon brushes an apology kiss against the inside of Harrow’s thigh and tries again, gentler. It works. Harrow falls, too easily, back into the deep well of pleasure that Gideon has built in her. Her body remembers every touch Gideon has given her. 

She tries not to scream. They have a performance tomorrow and she’s already losing her voice. 

And then Gideon lifts her head, looks up over the planes of Harrow’s belly. “Let me hear you.”

That draws a sound from her, a half-strangled moan. After that, it’s all over: Gideon puts her head back down, and Harrow starts screaming again. 

Her muscles clench, go taut and lax and taut again, but Gideon is holding her hips. Harrow can’t move. The pleasure dissolves her.

It goes on and on until Gideon pauses, breath breaking in ragged waves.

“More,” says Harrow immediately. It's so much, she should really stop, but her voice is already fucked and Gideon is right there and she _wants_. “Like before.”

“You want--” Gideon breaks off halfway through the sentence, like she can’t believe what she’s heard but doesn’t want to lose the opportunity. 

And then there's a brief moment of weightlessness. Gideon has flipped Harrow over again, supporting her hips but, at last, not holding them. 

From there, it doesn’t take long. Harrow is tired; Gideon must be as well.

She finishes in a glorious crescendo and pulls away, boneless and satisfied. A few moments later, Gideon settles in next to her. The mattress dips.

They stay there until the sweat dries on Harrow’s skin, Gideon tracing the lines of Harrow’s bones until Harrow can speak again. 

“You all right?” Gideon asks, when Harrow makes a small sound of complaint. 

“I’m fine,” Harrow tries to say, her voice reduced to a croak. She manages it on the second go, and adds, “Water would be good.”

Gideon draws the crumpled-up sheet over Harrow and slides out of the bed. Harrow makes no motion to move as she pulls her shirt back on and pads out the door. She’s gotten comfortable in Harrow’s house, but it also means that Harrow doesn’t have to lever herself out of bed and get her own water. That’s good; Harrow’s legs feel like they don’t have any bones left in them.

“Will I see you at the show tomorrow?” asks Gideon when she returns with the glass.

Harrow sips at it, drinks half the glass before she answers. “What do you think?” Her voice is hoarse from the screaming.

Gideon radiates confusion, so Harrow spells it out. “You have destroyed my voice. There is no possible way I’m going to be able to sing tomorrow.” She pauses, and then adds, "I completely fucking hate you. No offense." 

“You could have said.” Gideon tugs on her own hair. “Decide what you want, Harrow.” She crosses the room in three long strides and lets herself out.

Harrow lets her go. She never should have convinced herself that she could use her enemy for sex, no matter how many orgasms she’s gotten out of it. Worst of all, she doesn’t want to stop.

Alone in her house, Harrow texts Magnus with shaking hands. She says she's got a sore throat. She apologizes.

He texts back with get-well wishes and a recipe for tea. It makes her feel even worse.


	6. Chapter 6

After that, it goes back to normal. Or, anyway, the version of normal where Gideon comes over two or three times a week for sex. Harrow doesn't know how this got to be normal, but she is very carefully not complaining.

She's sleeping better, these days, even on the nights when Gideon doesn't fuck her into exhaustion. Magnus comments, exactly once, that Harrow looks well.

It turns out that the worst of it is over, because now everyone knows, or at least thinks they know. Harrow doesn't care; no one is talking to her about it anymore, and that's enough.

(She thinks she detects Palamedes' hand in the ongoing silence. She thinks he knows she's grateful. Either way, he knows never to bring the subject up.)

* * *

Three performances later, Harrow steps offstage after her opening number to find Gideon backstage, lifting a chaise longue that Harrow has only ever seen in Magnus's basement.

"What," Harrow says articulately.

Gideon has the grace to look shamefaced. "Dulcinea asked if I'd help."

Harrow has so many questions, chief among them how Dulcinea got close enough to Gideon to ask Gideon to help. She doesn't ask. She doesn't want to know the answers.

She turns to go, but Gideon catches up with her, moving quietly for someone wearing heavy work boots. Astonishingly, they're alone on this side of the stage, surrounded by ropes and the hush of velvet curtains. "Can I take you home tonight?" 

It means Harrow won't have to scramble for the bus. That's practical. "Fine," says Harrow. Blown-glass globes of pleasure bubble up inside her in spite of everything, anticipation rising in her chest. After tonight, she doesn't have a show for days, so it's safe. Gideon makes her scream almost every time they fuck now.

Gideon is giving her the kind of look that suggests she knows what Harrow has on under the many layers of her costume. She's wrong, Harrow realizes with delight. "I'm wearing something new today," she adds.

"Isn't that your usual costume?" asks Gideon, studying the details at Harrow's collar and wrists.

"Yes," says Harrow. She waits for Gideon to work it out.

It takes a few moments, but Harrow gets to watch as Gideon's eyes round and her mouth forms a tiny "oh" of desire. She thinks, briefly, that Gideon is going to grab her right here backstage. Maybe, if she can contrive to give Gideon a peek, they'll both be hot and messy by the time they get to Harrow's place, instead of just Harrow.

"Nav!" Coronabeth's voice, quiet for backstage, cuts through the moment. "When you're done with Dulcinea's boxes, can you refill my water bottle?"

The glass globes of pleasure shatter in Harrow's chest, leaving jagged shards behind.

* * *

"Why do you let them do that?" Harrow asks, later. They're standing next to Gideon's motorcycle, and Harrow can't stop fidgeting with that second helmet. She doesn't want to put it on, to smell the reminder of all the other women Gideon surely fucks. So, of course, she pokes at that wound in a different way. She's a glutton for punishment.

"They like me," Gideon says, as if that's enough of a reason to let a pair of women who don't deserve Gideon boss her around. "Besides, it means they let me backstage." She grins, as if she expects Harrow to be pleased at this.

Harrow hates Gideon hanging around backstage, but she suspects that asking her to stop will result in another fight. She doesn't want to deal with the drama, that's all. It's not like she cares. "Can you text me when you're going to be at shows?" 

She figures that's close enough to a reasonable request. A text message will at least let her prepare, keep her from getting blindsided by Gideon's enormous presence. 

"Sure," says Gideon, easy, as if Harrow hadn't spent the second half of the show agonizing about whether she would agree. As if she was completely unaware of how her muscles moved when she lifted boxes, the whole of the second act of the show, as if she had no idea that it had made Harrow's mouth go dry and her panties go wet. That Harrow had to fight, the whole time, not to press her thighs together and rub herself against the cheap plastic folding chair she'd claimed after opening the second act.

Gideon cocks an eyebrow. "Coming?"

Harrow can't delay putting on the helmet any longer. "Yes," she says.

It doesn't smell like someone else's perfume; there's only a faint odor of chemicals. So Gideon is considerate enough to clean up the evidence of her previous partners for the benefit of the one next in line for a spot in her bed. That's surprising, but Harrow will take it, because it means she can breathe on the drive home.

* * *

It turns out that, now that they both have helmets, Gideon does _not_ drive carefully. Harrow screams obscenities against Gideon's back every time they go around a corner, thrilled in spite of herself. She can feel Gideon's shoulders move, laughing.

She wants to laugh, too.

* * *

Harrow's front door barely closes before Gideon asks, "Can I see your new, ah...?"

There's a note of desperation in the question that Gideon is probably trying to hide, like she has been thinking about it for the past two hours, too.

Good. That's the only thing approaching justice that has happened to Harrow this _week_ , and Harrow is going to take it and run with it.

"You're going to have to be patient," She leads Gideon up the stairs and pushes her back onto the bed before straddling her. Only then does she start in on her own buttons.

Apparently it's her kind of night, because the new lingerie holds Gideon transfixed in place while Harrow fucks her, two fingers and her tongue working in perfect rhythm. She makes Gideon come _twice_ in a litany of "damn!" and "Harrow, _fuck_ ".

At that point, Gideon loses patience and takes the rest of Harrow's new lingerie off, curls her body over and around Harrow's so that the entire length of her body is pressed against Gideon's sweaty side. It should be gross, but Harrow is sweaty too, flushed and triumphant with it. She doesn't mind.

Harrow throws a leg out to one side to give Gideon access, and Gideon fucks her while mouthing feverishly at her neck and mumbling incomprehensible words. Probably more swearing.

Harrow doesn't listen, because she's screaming again.

This time, she doesn't mind. It feels like victory.

* * *

Gideon texts her a lot. Not only does she go to the shows, she ends up backstage at nearly all of them. Every time, Harrow can feel her there, like a rock in her shoe. But Gideon is following the rules; Harrow can’t figure out how to ask her to stop.

Harrow tries texting first sometimes, trying to distract Gideon. Maybe, if she can sate Gideon’s boundless appetite at appropriate times, Gideon will leave her alone when it’s important. Anything to get Gideon's constant presence away from her theater troupe.

The misdirection doesn’t work. All that happens is they end up having sex four or five times a week instead of two or three, every time Harrow texts and after almost every show, too.

It's a surprise when Gideon texts her, one Wednesday, with _im sorry i have to cancel tonight_

A pang of disappointment shoots through Harrow. Well, she knew the end was coming eventually. _fine_ , she texts back. _Thanks for letting me know_.

_one of my coworkers got hurt. i need to stay late to finish up. at least they're paying me overtime?_

Harrow stares at her phone, not sure how to respond to that. They don't talk about their lives. They don't even talk about Harrow's shows, and Gideon goes to most of them. Uncertainly, she types, _I hope they feel better soon._

The reply comes almost immediately _. broken wrist. it's going to be busy while she heals._

A pause, and then: _can i pick you up from practice tomorrow instead?_

Harrow freezes. That's another step closer, another line crossed.

But, at this point, nearly the entire troupe loves Gideon, not just Coronabeth and Dulcinea. Cam talks to her about medieval weaponry in hushed but excited tones, more words in a row than Harrow has ever gotten out of her. Jeannemary and Isaac are in awe of her biceps and her hair, respectively. Abigail likes Gideon's eager willingness to help. Magnus just likes everyone.

Palamedes thinks Gideon is good for Harrow. Harrow can't bring herself to explain the real situation to him.

What matters is that the damage is already done. She can accept Gideon's invitation without making things any worse. Before she can overthink it, she texts Gideon the address and when she gets out.

* * *

The next day, Gideon is precisely on time. It’s only slightly a problem, because they’re running over, working on some new multi-person acts. 

Technically, Harrow isn’t involved in any of them, but Corona has dragged both Palamedes and Camilla into her vampire act, and they need all the eyes they can get. It’s coming together, but that’s a lot of people on a stage that is, often enough, not very large. The blocking has to be perfect.

When Gideon gets there, Magnus lets her in. She settles on a chair in the corner of the basement and waves off Harrow’s attempt to communicate with her eyebrows. She looks perfectly content to wait.

It makes sense, Harrow decides. Even in rehearsal clothes, Coronabeth is hot. 

She’s glad when rehearsal is over. 

* * *

In Harrow's bedroom, she strips off her work clothes, thinking about the look in Gideon's eyes when Coronabeth rolls her hips. She studies Gideon, but Gideon is looking at her the same way she always has.

By the time she’s down to lingerie, Gideon is already naked. She goes to shimmy out of it, but Gideon makes a low noise and grabs.

She ends up with her face crushed against the surprising softness of Gideon’s breasts. The heavy thud of Gideon’s heart beats in her ear. “Stop it, Nav, I can’t breathe,” she says, inaccurately. Every breath she takes smells of Gideon.

Gideon lets go immediately. The temperature drops, but then Gideon pulls on her hand and it’s warm again. They end up crawling over Harrow’s bed. Gideon pulls again, tumbling Harrow onto her back. Her hands go everywhere, tracing all the bony planes of Harrow’s body. 

This, at least, is familiar. Harrow allows the familiar rasp of Gideon’s palms to soothe her, even as Gideon’s fingers dip under silky fabric. Harrow’s breathing quickens.

For once, Gideon isn’t messing around. She just touches Harrow in all the places she’s learned Harrow likes to be touched, bringing her cleanly up the slope of arousal. 

Gideon lets Harrow move her hips up into her hands instead of holding them in place. Harrow breathes out. They’re okay. It’s okay. She’s getting close, making little noises that are getting steadily louder, but that’s okay, too, because there’s no one around to hear.

And then Gideon takes her hands away. Harrow keens at the loss.

"Why did you stop?" she demands, once she has her breath back.

“I had to,” says Gideon, as if it’s obvious. “You have a show tomorrow.”

Harrow blinks. “You’re not going to make me scream, Nav.” Admittedly, this flies in the face of all the evidence at their disposal, but Harrow clings to the idea that she still has some semblance of control over the situation.

“If you scream, I’m going to stop again." But Gideon moves her hand again, and Harrow sinks back into sheer sensation. She's close, she can feel it in the backs of her thighs all the way to the tips of her breasts.

Her toes curl; her hands flex so that the bones stand out; pleasure spills forth from her throat.

Gideon stops, this time taking her hand away altogether. "I promised.”

"For God's sake, five minutes of screaming isn't going to trash my voice."

"I promised her," Gideon says again, miserably. 

Harrow leaps on the pronoun like a wolf on a fish in winter, like it's slippery and she might not live to the next meal if it gets away. "Promised who?" If Ianthe has been tampering with Harrow's personal life, she won't get away with it. Harrow is not without resources.

"Abigail," says Gideon. "She gave me your schedule when I asked and, uh, made a request."

"When-- how?" The emotions tangle over Harrow, fury and lust and shame. Harrow can't argue with Abigail, not without risking the troupe. Abigail isn't old enough to be Harrow's mother, but the same kind of embarrassment applies.

"Well, it's not like you talk to me when we're backstage!"

Harrow wrenches her body away from Gideon's, an undignified crab crawl over the mattress. The only saving grace is that the bed is big enough. Harrow can move so that none of Gideon's skin touches hers. "This is why I didn't want you to come to my shows!"

Gideon sits up. "Should I go?"

She should say yes, cutting this complication out of her life, but that would be yielding. Harrow refuses to let Gideon win. "I'm not done with you."

She shoves her hand in her own underwear. Her flesh is swollen and oversensitive. It takes a lighter touch than she usually prefers to get the results she wants.

Gideon looks like she's been electrocuted.

It's not the face that she makes when Dulcinea lies back on her chaise and arches her back so that the delicate lines of her breasts get limned in the stage lights, but it's magnificent anyway.

Gideon reaches out and touches Harrow just above the navel. "Can I--"

"Yes," says Harrow.

The troupe has a lot of very good breasts. Corona and Abigail have full, generous bosoms. Dulcinea doesn't, but she's so skinny it gives the same effect. Cam and Jeannemary have firm, athletic curves. Even Ianthe gets a lot of lift out of solid foundation garments. All of them have better breasts than Harrow does.

Somehow, none of them have Gideon Nav, breast aficionado, swinging her bulk over them, cupping their breasts over their bras. None of them have Gideon undoing the front clasp with, frankly, reverence.

Harrow does. This is Harrow’s. She’s never giving this up, not unless she has to.

She comes with a snarl as Gideon’s thumbs meet her nipples. She collapses back down onto the mattress, her breath loud in the sudden silence.

Next to her, Gideon rolls over onto her back. She’s touching herself; Harrow can hear her swear, and as her mind clears, she realizes that some of it is directed at her. She can only make out snippets, “damn!” and “so fucking hot”, but it’s enough to motivate her to move. 

There isn’t time to do much more than bite Gideon’s collarbone before Gideon groans and shakes under her like an earthquake.

She puts her head down on Gideon’s shoulder, basking in contentment and success. She doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but Gideon’s arm comes around her, and it’s been a long day.

* * *

Harrow wakes up alone in the dim moonlight of 2:00 in the morning. Sleep has dislodged her bra; the underwire pokes her in her armpit. She strips it off and throws it into a corner.

There’s a full glass of water on the bedside table. She sips at it as she tries to orient herself.

Gideon is gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Harrow is running late to practice. The new copy-paper vendor representative can’t make it to the office until after normal business hours. Normally, Harrow would make the vendor reschedule, but the engineering team has a big presentation coming up to leadership. She can cement her position in the eyes of the entire department if she can get this delivery in on time _and_ impress consequences of missing deadlines on the rep.

By the time she finishes coping with it, she has utterly missed the bus and is forced to text Magnus that she'll be late. He tells her it isn’t a big deal.

Maybe he’s right. There’s another bus in twenty minutes, and she’ll miss less than half their allotted time. But she’s never late to practice. It feels like a big deal.

When she gets there, Gideon’s motorcycle is parked at an angle in the gap between Dulcinea’s Bug and Palamedes’s Subaru. She considers turning straight back around, but she already texted Magnus. They're expecting her. If she runs now, the cause will be transparent.

Since Magnus let her in that first time, Gideon has been getting to practice earlier and earlier for weeks now. Apparently Marta, the co-worker with the broken wrist, is slowly coming back to work. Gideon still has to work late sometimes, but it’s getting less and less frequent.

They could go back to only seeing each other when Harrow doesn’t have practice. Harrow has dropped hints to this effect, hints that Gideon has ignored wholesale. She hasn’t pressed the issue, but maybe she should.

She walks up the concrete path, because Magnus hates it when anyone disturbs his manicured suburban lawn. Lets herself in the side door with the stairs that go straight to the basement, because she hates walking through his foyer. Seeing all the accumulated possession of two people desperately in love with one another hurts, from the well-worn cardigan draped over the newel post to the cabinet with company china that actually gets used.

Magnus refurbished the stairs when he finished the rest of the basement and turned it into a studio. They're carpeted, and they don't creak like Harrow's basement stairs. She descends quietly.

No one would have heard her if she'd entered with a middle school brass band. She descends into a scene of chaos.

All the furniture and all of the props have been cleared from the floor. Her troupe rings it in a semi-circle. Ianthe and Coronabeth flank Babs, huddled in intense conversation. Isaac looks on with big eyes, bereft of his usual partner in crime. On the chaise longue, Dulcinea reclines over Palamedes’ lap, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. Next to her sits Abigail on a hard-backed chair, and Magnus stands behind her with a hand warm on her shoulder.

In the middle of the floor stands Camilla Hect. As Harrow grinds to a halt on the second stair from the bottom, Cam blurs into motion: three back handsprings in a row.

On the floor near her, Jeannemary is watching everything she does with a rapt air of caution. That's normal. What isn't normal is Gideon standing there, just as focused. For once, Gideon isn't wearing jeans; she's barefoot in basketball shorts and a tank top.

Cam turns to observe her pupils. "All right. You try."

Jeannemary goes first. Harrow holds her breath, but Jeannemary lands the flip and does not bash her brains out on the basement floor, even if she wobbles a bit at the end.

And then Gideon moves. As she pushes off the floor with her arms, her tank top flashes up to reveal an expanse of toned brown abs. It falls back into place as she lands, grinning like a moron. Gideon's backflip isn't nearly as fluid as Camilla's, but it doesn't wobble like Jeannemary’s, either. In spite of herself, Harrow wants to see another one.

She doesn’t get her wish: Jeannemary wraps Gideon in a hug, and the semi-circle disbands.

"Have you ever considered performing?" It's Cam's voice, directed at Gideon. Harrow focuses on smoothing her coat down on top of her bag.

"Not really," says Gideon, from behind her. "You think I should?"

"You're coming to all our rehearsals anyway," Cam says. "I think--"

Harrow does not get to learn what Camilla thinks, because Palamedes interrupts her. It's just a pleasantry, but Harrow jumps.

Palamedes slides his glasses down his nose, his eyes darting over her for several long seconds before he pushes them back up again. "Get coffee with me?" he says at last.

"What?"

"Get coffee with me tomorrow. I miss you."

Harrow huffs out a breath. "I'm right here."

"When was the last time we argued about authenticity in the performing arts?"

That stops her dead, because she can't remember the last time they really talked. Usually, they argue about authenticity twice a week.

Nothing has been usual since Gideon has come back into her life, and it's been months now.

"Come get coffee with me tomorrow," Palamedes says again. "Friend date."

It sounds wonderful, to be honest, but Harrow already has plans. Now she has to say that out loud to her friend, a friend she hopes will continue to respect her if he finds out just how much time she's spent over the past three months having sex. Harrow wants to squirm out of her skin, leave a writhing shell behind her as the rest of her escapes to safety. "I already have plans." She can't help glancing at Gideon: she's so big, so present. The culprit behind the plans that Harrow both wants and does not want to have.

"Ah," says Palamedes. "Nav? Can you spare me Harrow tomorrow after work?"

Gideon breaks off the animated conversation she’s having with Cam and Magnus. "Sure," she says, ignoring the death glares Harrow is trying to drill into her skull. As if she has any say in what Harrow does, whether or not they already have plans.

Well, she'd rather see Palamedes than Gideon anyway.

She ignores the spectacle of Gideon pulling her jeans back on and focuses on the remainder of the rehearsal.

* * *

Gideon takes her home, even though Harrow is still angry. They have some of their best sex when they're angry with one another, anyway.

Harrow unlocks the front door.

Gideon hangs her jacket on the usual peg and detours to the kitchen. She knows where the glasses are, so Harrow leaves her to it, dropping clothes on the floor as she goes.

Gideon is a bundle of badly-controlled impulses, but Harrow knows one surefire way to keep her in line.

Barefoot and casual, Gideon lets herself into Harrow's bedroom. She sets the glass of water down on Harrow's bedside table. “All right, gloom mistress, what gives?”

Harrow rises from her perch on the bed. She’s changed into something with about 75 tiny hooks, because she wants to watch Gideon struggle. "You told Palamedes we had plans.”

Gideon’s eyes snag on what décolletage Harrow has. “What did you want me to tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“You know they know we’re fucking.”

“Don’t remind me.” Harrow pauses. “Or them.”

“You eyefuck me backstage every chance you get.”

“You would know if I were eyefucking you.” To prove it, Harrow sits back down on her bed and scrapes her gaze over Gideon like she’s trying to flay her, beneath the usual jeans and tank top down past the skin, so she can grab hold of the raw nerves and pull.

“Yeah,” says Gideon. “Exactly like that.” She shucks off her clothes, then puts her hands on Harrow and hauls. 

Harrow flies, landing softly on her back on her own mattress. “Don’t manhandle me, Nav.” Her pulse accelerates. She shouldn’t like this. 

Gideon ignores this. They’ve had this argument before, and they’re both completely clear on the facts of the matter; specifically, that Harrow does like that. She gives all her attention to undoing Harrow’s many tiny hooks. “I want you naked.”

Pressing back against the mattress, Harrow arches in a calculated maneuver. Her lingerie gives her just enough lift to make it minimally effective. “So work for it.”

“Don’t I always?” Gideon makes it through the last of the tiny hooks. She draws a breath in sharply through her teeth. “God, I love your tits.”

It’s such a patent falsehood. Harrow snorts. “Don’t make this weird, Nav.”

In the choice between arguing and putting her mouth on Harrow’s nipple, Gideon opts for the nipple.

It’s been months. She should expect that by now, Gideon knows exactly how hard to suck to make Harrow’s hips come off the bed. It still surprises her how fast Gideon can make her scream.

* * *

Unlike Gideon, Palamedes is considerate. They meet at a coffee shop down the street from Harrow’s office. It’s a nice walk in the early May sun.

He’s running late, but he texts Harrow to let her know. She gets her coffee and curls up in a corner booth to wait for him. She needs to catch up on her reading, anyway.

When Palamedes comes in, she’s completely absorbed in her book. “It’s good to see you,” he says with unwarranted warmth.

She snaps the book shut. “What do you mean? We talked yesterday at rehearsal.”

“Your girlfriend always gives you rides home.”

Not this again. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Palamedes takes a long sip of his coffee. “She isn’t?”

Harrow’s cheeks heat under her makeup. “I can’t talk about this with you.”

Palamedes’ eyebrows wing up and his eyes dart down. Harrow follows their trajectory and lands on her own hands, clutching at her ceramic mug. He’s looking for a ring, she realizes with horror. That couldn’t be more wrong.

She busies herself shoving her book back into her bag. Again, she can’t correct him; she wants to pretend that the relationship doesn’t exist. 

To his credit, he lets her get away with it.

* * *

There’s a knock on her door after Palamedes drops her off. Harrow hasn’t even gotten upstairs. She opens it, and Gideon’s out there. She steps inside, uninvited. 

“What are you doing here?” Harrow demands.

“Palamedes texted me,” says Gideon, as if that explains anything at all.

“So?” prompts Harrow.

"Should I go?" asks Gideon. "I'm going to miss your show on Friday. I wanted to see you."

"You could pick me up afterwards.” It's not that she can't make her own way home. It's that she loves the way all the energy from the show sinks into her flesh. She can crack open the shell that the performance builds over her skin and let everything pour out. Gideon lies back and takes it all: all her viciousness, all her pain, all the rage and frustration that she is still keeping faith with her parents' tainted legacy both because she loves it and because she doesn't know how else to live. Everything the broken mask of the theater lets her hide.

They share a look that means: I hate you, and you hate me, but we both know how this goes, and I can't wait to bang your brains out.

Then Gideon grins, a careless lopsided thing, closes the door behind her, and kisses Harrow.

Harrow forgets that she'd originally wanted to send Gideon away.

* * *

On Friday, Harrow revels in the sheer lack of Gideon. They’d arrived at practice yesterday and ignored each other pointedly, Gideon putting her head down with Camilla and beginning work on a routine. Harrow can’t think about that, though; she has a performance tonight and for once, Gideon has to work late on a day when they have a show. 

She layers on stage makeup alone in a dressing room. This, the best version of Harrowhark Nonagesimus, doesn’t depend on anyone. She performs, perfect and cold and untouchable. It will never make her parents proud-- they died before she could ever achieve that-- but she can sing until the whole audience feels like they’ve been stabbed in the heart by shards of bone. That’s good enough. Tonight will be no different.

Except, when she gets onstage, she finds out that tonight _is_ different. All her performances are good, but tonight, her head is clear, and her performance is _brilliant_. 

She comes off stage, replete with triumph. Her troupe stands in the wings, waiting for her, Palamedes and Camilla ready to offer particular congratulations. Someone catches her hands between warm, callused palms. Startled, Harrow looks up into a smile.

“You’re amazing,” says Gideon. 

Every thought process in her brain screeches to a halt. Her nerves ratchet up from zero to eleven. Gideon was supposed to work late, Gideon was going to pick her up _later_ , and now someone has let Gideon in backstage even though she doesn't have tickets. Gideon isn't supposed to be here.

It isn't surprising, after all, not after Gideon has spent all the time she was supposed to be waiting for Harrow cozying up to the cast and crew. For some reason, Gideon's terrible sense of humor fits right in, in a way Harrow never quite has, not even for all her talent. It doesn't bother her. She doesn't care what Gideon does when they're not fucking.

But, anyway, Gideon is there, backstage, huge and silent and distracting, and Harrow has to do something about it. She jerks her head back to the dressing room, and Gideon's stupid yellow eyes go wide, reflecting the stage lights like gold. It's all fake; this is the theater.

Harrow doesn't look back over her shoulder, because she can feel Gideon following her. There's dark satisfaction there, that she can make her enemy follow her on command.

It isn't really her dressing room, but it's empty. It will suffice. "This is going to be short and silent," Harrow tells Gideon, hopping up on the counter in front of the mirror, and Gideon just nods and goes to her knees.

Harrow doesn't manage to stay silent-- of course this, too, is denied to her-- but at least no one hammers on the door to make them stop. Gideon always seems a little smaller when they do this, a little less wild.

Too soon, she pushes Gideon away. She's not satisfied, and Gideon makes a small broken noise that says she isn't, either. But the show must go on.

Harrow puts herself together again frantically, enlists Gideon's help to do it. As she scrambles to fix her clothes, touch up her makeup, she inventories all the small sounds she made and comes to a conclusion she has no time to consider.

She leaves Gideon, still disheveled, behind her in the dressing room. She does not wonder when Gideon stopped trying to make her scream. She does not think about how long she has been screaming anyway because Gideon likes to hear it.


	8. Chapter 8

The first time Gideon performs is in August, which is a slow season for the troupe. Better to know now if it's going to work out. No one wants any nasty surprises when October hits and no one gets any sleep for a month.

Harrow isn't nervous. Harrow has never been nervous, not since the first time she performed onstage when she was five. If pressed, she might admit that she's worried about the show. But Magnus sandwiched Gideon's act between Palamedes and the much-rehearsed but never-before-seen double act of Jeannemary and Isaac, so even if she chokes under the lights, they won't lose the audience. Everyone else can't shut up about how excited they are, about how, if Gideon is anything like she is in rehearsal, the audience won't be able to look away.

Harrow will allow that Gideon does all right in Magnus's mirrored basement studio, but she can't shake the treacherous hope that Gideon can't handle the pressure. That she'll get out under the lights and freeze in front of the whole crowd, thin though it will be. Then maybe she'll stop hanging around rehearsal, distracting Harrow from her own act. They can go back to having anonymous sex on Harrow's schedule.

It is not a lot of hope.

Harrow opens the show in song, as always. Her high soaring soprano always sets the mood, and tonight, she hits every note perfectly. At least Gideon hasn't messed this up.

She yields the stage to thunderous applause, and then proceeds to the wings to gnaw her fingernails to the quick as she waits to see what disaster is going to unfold.

She's seen the act dozens of times in practice, so it should be familiar. The metallic tang of blood hits her tongue as Gideon poses center stage behind the curtain, robed from head to toe. She's broken the skin on her fingers with her teeth.

The act itself is a contrived thing. Gideon has a sword-- as if Camilla's sword dance isn't enough. The story is that she's fighting. It suits her; she has never stopped fighting Harrow.

The music swells, and Gideon turns to face the audience and pulls her sunglasses down her nose. The crowd lets out a collective breath as she tosses the sunglasses aside, letting them carelessly skitter into the wings.

And then she swings into motion, fighting a thousand phantom opponents. In the dance, she's losing badly, but she's fighting anyway.

The robes have clever snap buttons installed -- Palamedes and Camilla put their heads together for that one, the traitors-- so they come off as if an invisible opponent is shredding them. Gideon is a mass of biceps and flashes of powerful thighs. When the last of the robe falls to the ground, the stage lights hit the rippling muscle of Gideon's back, and Harrow gulps at her water, because her tongue has gone dry. It's one thing to know that Gideon has muscles-- to see and touch the muscles four or five times a week in the private sanctuary of Harrow's bedroom-- but it's entirely another to see them on wanton display like this, and for once Harrow can look her fill, because every other person in the building is as rapt as she is.

Someone has painted gashes on her body, and on stage, Gideon is managing to stagger with some strange version of grace. In Magnus's basement, the effect is cheesy; on stage, it's appallingly convincing. As the music hits its final crescendo, she falls to the ground as if she's been skewered, and lays deathly still on the ground.

Harrow realizes she's forgotten to breathe, and reverts to a breathing exercise her voice teacher drilled into her.

Magnus has to prompt Gideon, remind her to come back offstage so Jeannemary and Isaac can have the stage. It's a small blessing because the crowd obviously loved the show.

Gideon bounds to her feet, nearly naked and dripping sweat from the heat of the lights and the exertion. She bounces offstage and into the arms of the rest of the troupe, Harrow excepted. They shower her with congratulations and praise.

Harrow sees no reason to join their number, but eventually, as Jeannemary and Isaac start their duet, Gideon breaks free and, starry-eyed, approaches Harrow.

There is no inducement that can persuade Harrow to cope with whatever nonsense Gideon has taken into her head in public. They have at most fifteen minutes before intermission, and that will have to be enough. She jerks her head toward the dressing room. Gideon's eyes get, somehow, even brighter.

Harrow can smell Gideon once the door closes behind them, all sweat and makeup. Gideon is grinning at her, waiting expectantly for Harrow's reaction, a mass of gleaming golden-brown skin interrupted only by boxers and a bandeau.

"Take your underwear off," Harrow orders, and Gideon scrambles to comply as Harrow backs her onto the counter, presses her in so that her back hits the cold glass of the mirror.

Feeling vicious, Harrow throws Gideon's thighs wide, uncomfortably aware that she could never pull this off without Gideon's cooperation. Her fingers spear into Gideon, and to her shock, Gideon is wet with more than just sweat.

"Do you get off on that?" Harrow demands, outraged, using her other hand to pinch Gideon's clit.

"Babe," Gideon manages, "fuck," but the rest of her rejoinder gets cut off as Harrow hits every spot she's learned in all the months they've been fucking. Gideon dissolves under her hands, as well she should, in a stream of muffled profanity.

Harrow absolutely has to maintain control, because she has another song after intermission. She has only these precious few minutes to remind Gideon that Harrow can control Gideon's pleasure, and she's going to use every one of them to the fullest possible extent.

Gideon isn't even fighting her anymore, completely lost to sensation. Harrow fucks her, three fingers deep, and savors the way Gideon twists her head against the wall and writhes under her hand. For once, she doesn't care who hears.  _ She _ isn't the one making a frankly embarrassing amount of noise.

When she has to stop, her wrist is sore. Gideon makes a small, keening whimper, but Harrow has to be on her mark, or she'll throw off the timing of the entire second act. "Drink water," Harrow spits before sweeping out of the door.

By the time Harrow gets back offstage, Gideon has gotten on jeans and a tank top. She's even wearing boots, which means that Harrow's chances of a second round before the end of the show have sunk to nil.

Harrow is absolutely not disappointed.

She ignores Gideon pointedly, even though Gideon is clearly waiting for Harrow, an empty water bottle clasped loosely at her side. There is absolutely no way she's going to get out of drinks with the troupe tonight.

* * *

Gideon catches up with her after they wrap up the show. It’s inevitable, because Harrow doesn’t drive and Gideon has been giving her rides for months. Harrow can barely even remember the late-night schedule for the bus that gets her from this venue to home. It’s not one of their usual venues, so that’s not too surprising. She can still look it up, or, failing that, hail a ride.

She hasn’t done either of those things by the time Gideon catches her up around the waist in the parking lot. “Come on?” Her face glows with fae-touched brightness, covered with stage makeup incongruous under the street lights.

“Fine.” Palamedes will harass her about it if she skips out anyway.

They end up at the usual bar, even though it’s all the way across town. Magnus has secured them a corner table, already heavily laden with pizza and pitchers, and Abigail slides in next to him, her librarian blouse unbuttoned so far that Harrow keeps catching glimpses of her bra under her deep cleavage. Her hair is mussed, just enough for the dark, glossy strands to catch notes of red and gold off the overhead lights. She leans on her husband, and, with the Disaster Twins out of eyeshot for once, he kisses her.

Gideon scoots to take the seat on the other side Magnus in the corner of the L-shaped bench. Harrow considers leaving her to her poor decisions and taking one of the chairs, because being caught in the middle of a row of bodies sounds vaguely nightmarish, but Gideon beckons her over and Harrow can't quite deny her this on her night of triumph.

A few minutes later, Camilla confirms her fears. She slides onto the bench next to Harrow, mashing them ungracefully into the corner of the booth as Palamedes and Dulcinea pile on after her.

“Is this really necessary?” asks Harrow, jabbing Cam with an elbow. It’s technically possible to fit seven people on the bench, mostly because Harrow, Palamedes, and Dulcinea don’t take up very much room, but they're all squashed together. Between Gideon and Cam, Harrow feels like a bird trying to carve out personal space between two elephants.

It's not like there aren't other seats. The other side of the table has five chairs clustered around it, and, with the return of Jeannemary and Isaac, only two of them are occupied.

Cam simply lifts an eyebrow. To Harrow's shock, Ianthe, Coronabeth, and Babs appear in the doorway, dressed at least two levels too formally for this kind of establishment. But they show up, for the first time in months, and Harrow forgives them just a little when she sees Magnus beam.

Isaac and Jeannemary have finally gotten to try out their double act thanks to Gideon taking a slot in the lineup. They’re brimming with excitement and won’t shut up about the possibilities-- they’ve been trying to get that act onstage for  _ months _ now. Harrow had hoped that, now they’d gotten their goal, they would shut up about it. Evidently, their success has only encouraged them.

This batch of ideas is a little better than their usual fare of disasters and mayhem. Maybe all the handspring lessons with Camilla have blown the youthful cobwebs out of their brains, and they're going to start behaving like adults now. Harrow isn't holding her breath, but stranger things have happened. Case in point: next to her, Gideon leans in and brings up a point that Jeannemary hasn't thought of. Harrow doesn't know what's weirder: that Gideon has made a useful contribution, or that Jeannemary appears to be actually listening to it.

Even Ianthe seems excited, for all that she sits primly on her chair and sips a vodka soda as if its glass might be contaminated. 

Harrow presses her back against the vinyl bench and holds her beer in a loose hand, trying to pretend she's anywhere else. Her drink is getting warm, and honestly wasn’t very good even when it was cold, but Harrow really doesn’t want to have to ask to be let out so she can go pee. She’s not entirely convinced she could make herself heard over the sheer volume.

She's tired; she worked all week and now she has to cope with the new reality of Gideon performing, of yet another crowd swelling Gideon's already inflated ego, of watching Gideon get the biggest cheer, just as she had gotten the biggest cheer for just walking across the stage at their high school graduation, even though Harrow had given the valedictorian address.

Gideon’s sipping on a pint of something clear, which is weird because her usual drink is beer. She slings an arm around Harrow, and it’s heavy and warm and Harrow can’t figure out how to wriggle out from under it without elbowing Cam in the face. Gideon leans in, laughing, dragging Harrow along with her. She's as much a part of the troupe as Harrow is.

She’s pondering this, wondering what the hell Gideon is drinking, tuning everyone out and letting the sound wash over her.

“What are your thoughts, Nav?” asks Palamedes, in the middle of a conversation that Harrow isn’t paying enough attention to follow.

There’s an expectant pause. “I think,” says Gideon, slowly, “that since it’s a goth burlesque troupe, we should call our practices re-HEARSE-als from now on.”

Palamedes groans. "Forget I asked."

Isaac snickers so hard Jeannemary has to thump him on the back. Even Corona looks delighted until Ianthe prods her. Magnus continues beaming and asks if anyone wants another drink.

“Nah,” says Gideon. “I’m driving tonight.” She holds up her glass, and Harrow realizes it’s water, which is… surprisingly comforting.

Gideon’s arm drifts lower. Her hand lands on Harrow’s thigh and squeezes.

Harrow sits bolt upright and puts her half-empty beer down on the table so hard it sloshes over the rim. “Can I go freshen up?”

“I’ll go, too, if you’re moving.” Gideon looks at Magnus and Abigail, who move to let them by. Magnus actually  _ winks _ , which is utterly horrifying. Harrow has, unfortunately, seen evidence that he and Abigail have an active and varied sex life, and wishes she hadn’t on a regular basis.

She flees from the implications. The bathroom is quiet and cool, at least until Gideon joins her at the sink.

“You’re not having fun,” she observes.

“It’s fine.” Harrow pulls off her gloves and starts washing her hands. The automatic tap dispenses only water so cold it chills her fingers to the marrow. “You deserve to celebrate.”

“We could celebrate at home.” It’s innuendo, entirely expected from Gideon.

It sends a thrill down Harrow’s spine. Their dressing-room interlude satisfied no one, and at even this slight provocation, every roused nerve fires back to life. “We could,” she says, noncommittally.

Gideon grins. “Then let’s get out of here.”

* * *

“Do you want me to shower?” Gideon asks. She’s naked in front of the mirror in Harrow’s room, and Harrow can see all of the fake wounds from the show, still covering her body. The makeup has only faded a little; it’s still mostly intact.

Harrow doesn’t want to wait. If makeup ends up on her sheets-- for one thing, they’re black; for another, after the kind of sex they usually have, she should wash them anyway. She ignores the images of Gideon in her shower, the scent of her soap on Gideon’s skin. “They did a good job on these,” Harrow says, instead of answering. She traces a bloody gash. “Who was it?”

“Jeannemary, mostly.” Gideon’s studying Harrow in the mirror. “Cam helped. But I need to learn how to do it myself. Unless--”

“Unless?” There’s a cut painted over her shoulder blade. Harrow palms it. She can’t imagine Gideon can reach it on her own, not with the kind of fine control needed to get the effect.

“Next time, you could paint me.”

Harrow’s lungs shudder. Naked Gideon under her brushes, before a show, marking her with cuts that, in real life, aren’t even skin deep. She wants it, wants to make Gideon think of  _ her _ every second she’s onstage. But they don’t have that kind of relationship. Harrow has no right to feel possessive. “If you want.”

“I like it when you touch me,” says Gideon, making it a lie by pulling Harrow in front of her where Harrow has to crane around behind her to reach.

“You just like the attention.” Harrow knows she sounds grumpy. “I’m sure lots of women want to paint you.”

“I’m not asking them. I’m asking you.”

“Are you sure?” It’s too tart and too hopeful at once. This day has been too long and too emotional. She’s letting everything slip through the cracks in her facade. It’s the way Gideon is standing behind her, tired and still vibrant, her cheek pressed against Harrow's forehead.  


Gideon laughs, a short thing with bitterness laced through it like hemlock. "Are you asking me to be exclusive?" Her thumbs trace the line of Harrow's hips. She sounds incredulous. 

It’s too much to ask. Harrow should never have brought it up. "Of course not!" Not that she's seeing anyone else. She doesn't have the time. "I'm sure you're seeing-- lots of other women, and you're more than welcome to continue to do so."

“Harrow,” says Gideon. Her lips are warm against Harrow’s ear. “I’m here five nights a week. When do you think I’d have  _ time _ ?”

“I have learned not to underestimate the depths of your depravity.” Harrow feels brittle, fighting to hold her own broken pieces together.

“Harrow,” says Gideon, “There hasn’t been anyone else since  _ February _ .”

The floor crumbles out from under her. Harrow fights her way to solid ground, ripping her body away from Gideon’s strong grasp, because suddenly she can’t bear to see both herself and Gideon at the same time. 

Or, anyway, she tries to. In February, Gideon would have let her go. Now, six months later, she holds on.

“Harrow,” says Gideon. “I bought you a  _ helmet _ . What the fuck did you think was going on?” 

“It was no-strings-attached sex!” Harrow protests. Gideon has her pinioned in front of the mirror. “We had agreed. How was I supposed to know the rules had changed?”

“You’re a fucking moron,” says Gideon, whose pillow talk has always been entirely disastrous. She lapses into silence, apparently unable to follow up that particular witticism with anything but the insistent press of her body against Harrow’s. Eventually, she presses a kiss against the top of Harrow's head and says, “Hey, if I let go of you, are you going to run away?”

Harrow hesitates.

“Because if you’re just going to run away again, I’m not letting go,” says Gideon. “I’m really comfortable. I can stay here all night.” 

To prove it, she nips along the cord of muscle running along the side of Harrow’s neck.

Harrow tries to avoid squirming. She fails.  


“I need you to promise,” says Gideon, patient and implacable. "Please?"

“I promise.” Harrow swallows. “I won’t run away.”

“Was that so hard?” Gideon skims her hands down Harrow’s sides until her arms are fully extended with her fingertips brushing the tops of Harrow’s thighs. Then she lets go.

It’s just for long enough to unhook Harrow’s bra, to slide the straps off her shoulders, until Harrow is standing in front of a mirror in a tiny pair of panties that had seemed like a much better idea when she’d put them on before the show, back when she’d piled on fifteen layers of fabric between them and the world. 

“I can’t keep my hands off you,” says Gideon, huskily, right next to her ear. 

Harrow squirms some more, but she doesn’t shy away, even when Gideon starts to demonstrate just how much she likes to touch. It’s like dancing, their bodies pressed together and swaying slightly. Sometimes, in rehearsal, Harrow tries out a hip roll. Never on stage, but her body knows how it goes. She’s never done it in front of Gideon before, but she’s doing it now, her hips falling into rhythm with the motion of Gideon’s body against hers.

“Here?” asks Harrow. They’ve had a lot of sex in this room, but never like this. Never with Gideon catching and holding her eyes in the mirror. Never with Harrow forced to watch her own destruction.

“You haven’t ever used a mirror to get off before?”

“You have?” Incredulity is the only defense she has left. It’s altogether too easy to imagine Gideon touching herself, watching herself, burnished and muscled and arched under her own hands.

“Sure,” says Gideon. “But your mirror is better than mine, and it’s always better with company.”

She catches one of Harrow’s nipples, using her fingers so that her hands don’t swallow up Harrow’s breast, the way they usually do. Her skin is darker than Harrow’s, and her hands are tanned on top of that. When she moves them, they cast shadows into the hollows of Harrow’s body. It’s a deliberately pornographic show. Harrow would object, except-- she knows how much Gideon likes her dirty magazines.

Sound bubbles up in Harrow’s throat. She lets it. There’s no point in hiding, not when Gideon has put her so thoroughly on display. They know each other too well for Harrow to dissemble.

It's good when Gideon touches her. It's always good when Gideon touches her. But, in front of the mirror, it hurts as well. With intense focus, Gideon traces every angle that never bloomed into a curve, as if she really can’t get enough of Harrow’s body. It’s still not the way Gideon looks at Corona or Dulcinea-- it’s the way Gideon looks at  _ her _ , turned up to a fever pitch. Harrow can’t stand it.

She tips her head back onto Gideon’s shoulder, desperate to escape. Gideon turns her head to kiss her, and she thinks she’s gotten away with it.

Then Gideon kisses her jaw, her ear, her shoulders. “Open your eyes,” she says. “I want you to see. You’re gorgeous.”

Harrow makes a sound she’d never heard herself make before-- a thing of arousal, but it’s wounded, too. Gideon knows all the soft places in her and cuts into them with a steady hand. Harrow can’t go on, but she might die if Gideon stops.

She endures another minute, or maybe two, her body hot with both arousal and shame, before the delicate fretwork of her soul starts to break. She promised, and she’s not running away, but-- 

“Can we stop?” she asks. Gideon can hold her in place if she wants to, literally hold her to her promise, but instead she lets Harrow turn to face her in the circle of her arms.

Gideon gathers her in. “You okay?”

“You were looking at me.” It's a simple statement of fact, but her voice shakes. The corners of her eyes have begun to sting. But Gideon looks at her all the time. It’s ridiculous to find it upsetting. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“You're not,” says Gideon. “We can do something else.” She picks Harrow up.

As always, Harrow struggles, but as Gideon approaches the bed, she also relaxes.

They fall together on the mattress in a tangle of limbs. Astonishingly, Harrow wins the ensuing tussle and ends up on top. She pauses, astride Gideon’s hips, and from this position of power says what she should probably have said back at the theater. “You really are something else on the stage, Griddle.” To avoid any further conversation on the matter, she bends her head and kisses every fake cut she can reach. 

Gideon's performance really was good, and it isn't fair that she can do that after two months when Harrow has been singing her whole life.

She waits until Harrow is kissing the smudged paint on her thighs and then props herself up on her elbows. “Why do you sing with a burlesque troupe?"

Harrow sits back on her heels. To answer that question, she has to talk about her parents. About everything that she inherited, about all the things that took too long to get rid of, about the pieces that she still carries, willingly or not. She meets Gideon’s eyes and says nothing.

"They'd never look at anyone else, if you did an act like everyone else," Gideon presses on. 

Harrow doubts that. If Gideon likes watching her, it's just because they're fucking regularly. “I like singing,” she says. An inadequate response, but she’s already revealed too much to Gideon tonight. She can’t explain about how safe it is to perform, to give the audience exactly the parts of herself that she chooses to share.

“You don’t even take off a glove.” Gideon crunches her body up until Harrow is sitting across her lap. Their faces are very close. “I’m just saying, you could. If you wanted. Because you're stunning.”

Harrow’s nearly naked, and there are a thousand targets, but Gideon chooses to kiss Harrow’s right hand, both knuckles of her thumb in sequence before fanning out and kissing each joint of her fingers in turn, never letting the eye contact waver. She’s looking at Harrow again,  _ seeing _ Harrow again, and it’s absolutely intolerable.

"Or," Gideon says, turning Harrow's hand over so her lips brush Harrow's palm, "you could sing anywhere. You're so damn good."

Harrow chokes. 

When Gideon reaches for Harrow’s other hand, Harrow shakes both hands free and pushes Gideon back down. "No more talking," she says.

"Oh yeah?" Gideon smiles up at her, lopsided. Letting the moment go. "Gonna make me?"

“Yes,” says Harrow.

* * *

Later, they lay together in the wet spot, both too utterly boneless to move. Harrow has her head on Gideon's shoulder, and she listens drowsily as it goes back to its normal resting wait, lulled into complacency.

"So wait," says Gideon. "All this time, have you been fucking other women?"

"Griddle," Harrow says warningly.

"No, seriously, were they hot? Do they like redheads?"

"Of course not." Harrow nips at Gideon's collarbone, because she doesn't have the energy to seize a pillow and use it to pummel Gideon. "You know I haven't been."

"So… exclusive?" asks Gideon, so quietly that it perversely makes the syllables resonate in Harrow's head.

"Exclusive," Harrow agrees, warm and sated and content. "And you'll let me know when you find a better fuckbuddy." The way Gideon looks at Corona flashes behind her drooping eyelids, but if that hasn't happened yet, it's probably unlikely to happen in the near future. She's safe.

"Harrow," Gideon is saying, low and distressed. Maybe it's important, and maybe it isn't, but Harrow doesn't find out either way. She falls asleep, head tucked nearly under Gideon's chin.

* * *

She wakes up, too cozy to want to move. There’s a tiny bar of sunlight that sneaks in around her blackout curtains and crosses the bed. Usually, that's what wakes her.

Not today; today, it's a big, heavy arm resting on her hips.

It turns out Gideon sprawls out in her sleep.

Very quietly, Harrow panics. It takes several fraught minutes to sidle out from under Gideon's arm. A small eternity later, she's gotten dressed, fabricated a schedule conflict, and left several notes directing Gideon to help herself to breakfast because Harrow won't be back until at least mid-afternoon.

It's a waste of effort, Harrow thinks as she sticks a post-it to her pantry door. Gideon knows where everything is in Harrow's kitchen at this point. How strange that they've never had to navigate a morning after before.

It's not the first time she's fallen asleep before Gideon can leave. She wonders why this time, Gideon stayed.


	9. Chapter 9

In the end, it’s Isaac who brings it up, bluntly. "You should sing for Gideon."

It takes Harrow three breaths to figure out what he means, because Harrow sings every week, and Gideon is always there these days, whether Harrow likes it or not.

("I told you she wasn't ready," hisses Jeannemary from her post at Isaac's elbow, while Harrow stands there trying to make sense of language.

“If we wait for her to be ready, it’ll never happen,” Isaac whispers back, as if Harrow can’t hear him. She’s right there.)

"She performed for the first time _two weeks ago_ ," Harrow says, weakly. "I'm sure she doesn't want to change anything so soon."

"Change what?" asks Gideon, sauntering over with typically horrible timing.

“We all think Harrow should sing for your act,” Jeannemary says promptly, all concerns of Harrow’s readiness thrown to the wayside in the presence of Jeannemary’s idol.

“That would be _awesome_ ,” says Gideon, breaking into a grin. “What do you think, Harrow?”

It’s the end of August. There’s barely more than a month left before the whirlwind rush of shows leading up to Halloween. It’s a terrible time to make any changes to anyone’s routine. Even Palamedes has settled into two or three of his top choices from the summer.

But Gideon's giving Harrow this bright, enthusiastic look. Harrow can’t quite bring herself to refuse. “We’ll see how it goes,” she says. If they haven’t ironed out the wrinkles by mid-September, Palamedes or Abigail or Camilla or Magnus or _someone_ will put their foot down, and it won’t be up to Harrow alone to save the reputation of the troupe.

* * *

Two rehearsals later, Harrow’s singing in Magnus’s basement while Gideon whirls around her, and she realizes that the act is already nearly stage-ready. Her song slots into Gideon’s choreography like it had always had a Harrow-sized hole in it.

It’s not like they’re starting from scratch. Palamedes proposes a song already in Harrow’s repertoire-- she only has to change about three lyrics to suit Gideon’s act. Camilla adds a few flourishes to Gideon’s choreography, and they fit together seamlessly, so well Harrow can’t imagine they’d ever been separate.

Harrow knows for a fact she’s seen Gideon practicing the new version even before the Disaster Twins forced her hand.

Darkly suspicious, Harrow glares at Palamedes, who casts his eyes to the ceiling of Magnus's basement and shrugs. Palamedes never looks that innocent when he hasn't done something devious. In case that wasn’t evidence enough, Camilla gives her a little cat-smirk.

Her entire troupe has conspired to foist this upon her.

As Harrow soars into the last verse, she can’t blame them too much. It’s brilliant. Magnus has already scheduled the new act and pulled some strings to get the press to attend. They have two weeks to iron out the wrinkles before they put the duet in front of an audience. Harrow already knows that they won’t need them.

* * *

Behind the curtain, Gideon pulls down her sunglasses so she can catch Harrow’s eyes. She waggles her eyebrows.

“Stop it,” mouths Harrow. They don’t have time to stand and pull go-to-hell faces at each other. Gideon pushes the glasses back up and resumes her opening pose bare moments before Ianthe finishes their intro and the curtain parts.

The theater is absolutely packed. A full theater feels different, riper, even though Harrow can see fuck-all past the blinding stage lights. Harrow’s already done her usual first and second act opening songs. She knows how full the seats are, but she can feel the moment Gideon realizes how many eyes are on her. It galvanizes her. Even from a distance, Harrow can taste Gideon’s excitement the same way she tastes salt on Gideon’s skin. It’s contagious. 

Harrow hasn’t shared the stage in years. She’d forgotten how much fun it can be with the right partner. It makes her stand up just a little bit straighter, even though she never slouches onstage.

Silence spreads out over the rows of seats, swallowed up in velvet, and then her accompaniment comes in, right on cue. Harrow breathes in and sings.

Harrow has only seen Gideon’s act a handful of times under the lights. The theater works its magic every time, and seeing Gideon hurt aches in her chest like a weight hung off her heart. She knows it’s fake-- she’s taken over painting every pretend cut on Gideon’s body herself. It still looks real.

Up close, it’s even worse. She can’t stop herself from looking, seeking out every wound as Gideon reveals each patch of skin in turn. 

It hits her for the first time that, in this act, Harrow is cast in the role of Gideon’s lady love. Gideon is fighting _for her_ . Gideon has doomed herself, thrown herself bodily against an enemy she knows she can’t defeat, _for her_.

Her throat wants to constrict. She forces it open. Years of vocal training and years of performing mean that she has perfect control over this, at least. She can keep singing.

Harrow can’t stop the realization rising inexorably in her chest. She can no longer conceive of a universe without Gideon in it. They’ve spent their entire lives wrapped around each other, jockeying for attention and approval from teachers and then from professors and then, finally, from each other. Somehow, Gideon has become the best and brightest thing in her life. It’s terrifying.

She doesn’t know how she’ll survive if she loses Gideon. The act slices into her, pain blooming fresh every time an imaginary blade slices into Gideon. She can’t bear watching Gideon sacrifice herself, even in pantomime.

There’s nothing she can do to stop it.

In front of her, Gideon jerks. This is the part in the act where Gideon finally loses her fight. Harrow knows it’s coming. They’ve rehearsed it a hundred times, in Magnus’s basement and Harrow’s living room and a few times in a park because Gideon had wanted the fresh air. None of that prepares her for the soft thump of Gideon’s body falling at her feet, knees and hips and shoulders hitting the wood floor of the stage in turn. The ultimate offering, laid out at Harrow’s feet. 

When she comes to her final rest, her eyes are closed, and she wears a small, tight, ready smile on a face marked with stage makeup and sweat. 

Harrow’s heart threatens to wrench itself from her chest. All the feelings she’s had for Gideon for months and months now look different: a lot less like hate and a lot more like something much more dangerous.

Harrow _never_ improvises. Never. But her legs are wobbling under her, and it fits the song. She hits her last note, holds it, and when it’s over, her knees cut out at the same time as the sound. She crumples to kneel by Gideon’s corpse. Her face is hot with real tears, and the only saving grace is that Gideon can’t see.

The curtain sweeps down on that tableau. Gideon still hasn’t gotten up, hasn’t even moved from her deathly still pose.

Harrow has to forcibly remind herself Gideon isn’t really dead. Every single bit of this is an act, except for the salt water falling off Harrow’s face and onto Gideon’s shoulder.

Any second now, Gideon is going to sit up and ask if Harrow is okay.

Harrow doesn’t know what to say. She can’t think of a single word to explain herself. Reaching for her wrist, she rips off a glove, presses it in a crumpled ball into Gideon’s hand.

Before Gideon can see her, she flees the stage.

* * *

This venue is big enough to have a sufficient quantity of actual dressing rooms for everyone to have their own. It’s typical of their troupe that everyone shares anyway. If Harrow can gather up her things quickly enough, there are plenty of places to hide.

When she reaches the dressing room where she’d gotten ready alongside Gideon, Harrow curses her own messiness. There’s still makeup spread out over the counter, clothes on the floor. She sweeps it all into her bag with one careless arm, not caring if anything breaks. She has to get out of here; it’s the first place Gideon will look.

There’s no one in the hallway when she scurries down it and locks herself into one of the empty rooms. It’s possible she’s left things in the dressing room, but there is no way in hell she’s going back to look. She has her phone; she has her wallet. She can get herself out of this. She just needs enough space so that she can _think_.

* * *

Forty minutes later, she’s locking the front door of her house behind her. The air outside is sweltering hot. It sticks the fabric of her costume to her skin with fresh sweat. Inside, her house is dark and cool and still; she can’t suppress a shiver.

She drops her bag on the floor of her bedroom and turns the master bathroom's shower up as hot as it will go. Steam billows out from behind the shower curtain. Harrow knows she's scalding her skin, but she can't bring herself to care. It doesn't hurt, not compared to what it felt like to see Gideon dead at her feet. She scrubs hard, letting sweat and makeup and tears-- the only physical evidence of the evening's catastrophe-- swirl down the drain. If only it were so easy to forget.

She steps into the cold tile floor of the bathroom, wraps herself in a huge fluffy towel. It fails to comfort her.

On her nightstand, her phone is buzzing. She's missed six calls. She swipes to reject the seventh. She doesn't trust her voice.

There's a text message, too. Harrow can handle texting. Probably.

 _harrow? where'd you go?_ Gideon is probably still at the theater with the rest of the troupe, basking in triumph.

It's just logistics, basic etiquette. Harrow’s hands still shake on the touch screen. _Took the bus._

_do you want me to come over?_

_No._ Harrow doesn't elaborate. She can't bear to have empty hate-sex with Gideon anymore, not when she's seen her lying dead at her feet. Not when the depth of her feelings for Gideon have savaged her and left her drowning with how much it hurts to see the stage lights flickering over Gideon's corpse. Suddenly, all at once, they aren't enemies anymore, and Harrow doesn't know how to cope.

Besides, there's no way to explain. Anything Harrow could say would scare Gideon away, and then she'd be vulnerable in addition to alone. There's nothing she can add that will make this any better, so she doesn't.

She turns off her phone, takes it downstairs and hooks the charger up to a kitchen outlet. She fills a glass of water herself, trying not to think of how many glasses of water Gideon has filled for her. She leaves the glass on the counter next to the toaster. 

Back upstairs, she swallows an over-the-counter sleep aid dry and goes to bed alone.

Her bed is a lot bigger and a lot colder without Gideon in it.


	10. Chapter 10

Harrow wakes up to a swarm of notifications on her phone.

The group chat is buzzing with enthusiasm about the performance. Magnus's contact at the local news site says the critic was blown away. Someone has created a hashtag-- not that it's taken off, but there's a few dozen posts across platforms about #DiedForLoveBurlesque which is more than they usually get. Ianthe, who actually uses social media in a non-perfunctory way, has a plan to use this to increase their reach.

It’s also more than Harrow has ever dared hope for. They’re organized as an arts non-profit, but Magnus has been talking about wanting to pay them at least an honorarium for years. (Harrow knows for a fact that Palamedes’ prop habit means he spends several times what they take in at a normal show. Luckily-- or more likely, by design-- his day job can support that kind of expenditure.) 

If they can book a few more bigger shows, though, the knife-edge balance of that calculus might change. The Tridentarii can win the fame they’ve always wanted. Magnus and Abigail might even be able to stop subsidizing Jeannemary and Isaac on top of bankrolling the troupe.

Harrow should be excited. She finds she can’t bring herself to care. She texts with a perfunctory “ _great job!_ ”, mutes the thread, and goes on to cope with her other notifications.

The text from Magnus is safe. As usual, he’s texted that he hopes she got home safely. Harrow replies that she did. After that, she moves cautiously into dangerous territory.

There's a message from Palamedes delicately asking what happened. Another text from Camilla, time-stamped an hour later, asks the same question without mincing words.

Abigail rarely texts-- she usually leaves the communication to Magnus. Harrow isn’t sure she’s ever gotten a text from her outside the group chat. But Harrow has her number saved, and Abigail isn’t cruel in the way a Tridentarius might be. Gingerly, she opens the text.  _ If you ever need to talk about it, I'm here _ .

There's a dozen text messages from Gideon. Harrow can't bring herself to even look at them. She thumbs the notification away and signs up for text updates from every venue they've performed at that offers them, just so she doesn't have to look at the unread messages staring at her.

She doesn't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to think about it. She never wanted to fall in love with Gideon Nav.

* * *

At practice on Tuesday, Harrow gets there deliberately late, hoping to avoid a scene. To her chagrin, the entire troupe is waiting for her. It’s like she’s walked into a gallery of disturbingly lifelike statues. No one has even gotten out their props.

Gideon is waiting for her at the bottom of the basement stairs. "You haven't texted me in three days," she says, very quietly. 

Harrow wishes she had shouted. The silence is huge around them. Even the Jeannemary and Isaac have gone still and quiet. She can't find anything to say.

"Nav," says Coronabeth, once the hush has grown thick and stifling. "Can you help me move this throne?" It seems to be an attempt to help, ham-fisted though it is. 

It doesn't work. For the first time in recorded history, Gideon ignores Corona completely. "Harrow--"

"I can't," says Harrow, wretched. "I just can't."

Gideon looks like she has things she wants to say, a thousand angry words poised on the top of her tongue to fling out at Harrow, to wound and destroy her.

Harrow braces. She deserves all of them.

Instead, Gideon shrugs, a single, vicious gesture, and takes her usual rehearsal spot next to Jeannemary. The troupe grinds slowly into motion.

The show must go on.

* * *

Gideon leaves before practice is really over. It's not how they usually work-- even if someone's part in the practice is done, they still stay until the end-- but Gideon manufactures a flimsy excuse and no one argues with her. It's the worst practice they've had since Babs almost quit the troupe.

Harrow lingers after practice, guiltily. She wants someone to tell her she hasn't ruined it all. She wants to yell that she tried to keep Gideon from getting all tangled up with the troupe, and everyone drew her in anyway, and why are they even surprised that it's all ended badly, the way that things with Gideon always end badly? Harrow is too toxic to keep anyone around.

She looks to Camilla and Palamedes for help, but they just look at her with sad eyes from across the room before letting themselves out. Isaac and Jeannemary huddle around Magnus, as if there's safety in numbers.

Maybe, for them, there is. Harrow is safest alone.

She can't linger in Magnus's suddenly hostile basement any longer. She emerges out into the bright September sun to find Coronabeth waiting for her.

Corona examines her nails. “You know, you’ve been hurting that woman for as long as I’ve seen the two of you together. I assumed you were doing it on purpose.”

Harrow can taste the rejoinder poised on the tip of her tongue-- she was doing it on purpose, until suddenly, she wasn’t-- but it isn’t any of Corona’s business and, more importantly, Corona doesn’t care.

"Thanks for the advice," Harrow says, nastily, and stomps off to catch the bus.

* * *

On Wednesday, Harrow jumps every time her phone buzzes. The muscles around her stomach clench and nausea rises. She looks at her phone. It’s from the venue where she performed the night Gideon first gave her a ride home, the night that Gideon drove carefully because she’d given Harrow her helmet. They’re having a 2-for-1 margarita special.

Gideon hasn’t texted since the weekend. Harrow unsubscribes from the text updates.

* * *

The only thing keeping Harrow going is that Gideon hasn’t tried to return the glove. She can’t stop wondering about it. Maybe Gideon left it at the theater on that terrible night. 

It doesn’t matter. Harrow has more gloves. There’s only one Gideon.

* * *

On Thursday, Gideon doesn't come to rehearsal at all. 

“Maybe she’s running late,” says Jeannemary nervously.

"It's  _ September _ ," Isaac says. They're all thinking it. October is right around the corner. It's the worst possible time for disruptions in the troupe.

They can't delay any longer. They start the practice without Gideon.

* * *

No one stays to chat after practice. They each gather up their gear and troop miserably up to the driveway. Harrow is halfway to the bus stop when Palamedes' Subaru screeches its brakes next to her. Cam jumps out even before it comes to a complete halt.

"Fix it," she says.

Harrow spreads her hands. "I can't." If she knew how to make it better, she would have already done it five times over.

Cam doesn't look impressed with that answer. "You broke it. We miss her. Fix it."

Harrow struggles to explain. Not that she owes anything to Camilla, but because it's only going to get worse if she doesn't address it. "We were hate-fucking," Harrow says, well aware that this is not particularly flattering. "I can’t do that anymore."

This explanation does not convince Camilla, either. She rolls her eyes. “Whatever you two disasters were doing had nothing to do with hate. I hope Abigail smacks you both.”

She slams back into the car.

Harrow has to run in order to catch the bus.

* * *

_ We got her to agree to perform tonight, _ says the text from Camilla on Friday morning.  _ Don't fuck this up _ .

* * *

Harrow can't fuck anything up, because she barely sees Gideon before the show. There's a flash of red hair disappearing into Jeannemary and Isaac's dressing room. 

Anyway, Harrow has her own performance to focus on.

At least, on stage, it's a performance she's good at.

* * *

Gideon doesn't make faces at her before their duet. She keeps her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses until the curtain goes up.

Harrow is scared that Gideon won't take the performance seriously, but the fear evaporates quickly. Her act is as good as it was the first day, as it's been every day since. Apparently, Gideon loves the stage as much as Harrow does.

The unexpected point of commonality doesn't make getting through the act any easier. Gideon is just as devastatingly beautiful as she's always been. It's less confusing to appreciate it now that Harrow knows that she loves Gideon.

She's so close to her, and she can't touch her. Can't kiss her. Can’t tell her that she’d do anything to keep Gideon warm and alive by her side.

Gideon dies. It's no easier to see Gideon on the floor at her feet than it had been a week ago.

She falls to her knees again at the end of the song again. Somehow, it just feels right.

For the first time, Gideon gets up after the curtain falls without prompting, leaving Harrow kneeling on the stage behind her. By the time Harrow manages to get her legs to work, Gideon has disappeared. Harrow leans out the fire door. Gideon’s motorcycle isn’t in the parking lot.

Backstage, it’s strangely quiet.

Cam is right. Harrow has to fix this.


	11. Chapter 11

She takes all of Saturday and most of Sunday to prepare a plan. It isn't perfect, but it can't wait. Harrow's hesitation has already caused too much damage.

She has no perfect self to offer Gideon, only her own broken soul. It will either be enough, or it won't. Harrow prays that it will be at least enough to ease the tension between Gideon and the rest of the troupe. Even if Gideon doesn't want Harrow, she deserves the friendships she's made.

It's the best she's got. She texts Palamedes and prays.

* * *

Palamedes makes her wait.

Fair enough. This is all Harrow's fault.

But, eventually, he does show up, slamming the door of his Subaru and folding himself onto one of her kitchen chairs. As a bribe, Harrow has made him the tea he likes best. She arranges chocolate-dipped biscuits on a plate. It's what her mother would have done, and, more importantly, it keeps her hands busy.

He accepts the tea and ignores the biscuits. Peering at her over the rim of his teacup, he says, "You could have avoided this if you had talked to her at any point over the last six months."

Harrow isn't remotely so sure. She crushes her own biscuit with the handle of her teaspoon. "I can't change that now," she says at last. "This is the only thing I can think of that’s good enough for her.”

She's put the package in the middle of the table so she stops fussing with it. It's tiny, small as a matchbox, but too important and too urgent to trust to a stranger.

"You could just text her," he grumbles. "Then you wouldn't need me to act as courier for your girlfriend."

"Please," says Harrow, letting the 'your girlfriend' slide. She likes the way it sounds, and once this has played out, she may never hear it again. All she can do is try. There's no defense for what she's done, and she can't face talking to Gideon before she apologizes. Her phone is heavy against her thigh. The string of unread text messages burns her.

She doesn't even know Gideon's address. In all the months they were doing-- whatever it was they were doing-- they'd never gone to Gideon's apartment. Gideon has roommates, Harrow knows that much, and Harrow has the house she inherited. It had seemed simpler and cleaner to use the house instead of the shared apartment. Gideon had never objected.

Harrow doesn't ask how _Palamedes_ has the address. He has alarmingly useful research superpowers, but he sometimes shares them with Harrow, which makes it hard to object.  


He finishes his tea, puts the package in his pocket, and pushes his chair abruptly back from the table. "It's not always easy to be your friend, Nonagesimus," he says.

It's what they say to each other after they've gotten too heated in an argument. Usually, she says something like "You're the one who won't leave me alone." It brings them back to level.

This time, she takes a hasty gulp of tea to clear the lump in her throat. "Thank you."

If he can forgive her for nearly ripping apart their troupe, then maybe she stands a chance with Gideon.

* * *

_ She has it _ , says the laconic text message that arrives half an hour later.

Harrow can't ask for more than that. _ Thank you _ , she writes.

She can't control whether Gideon comes or not, and she'll break down if she thinks about it too much. The only thing she can do is prepare to the best of her ability.

* * *

It's well after 3AM when Harrow stumbles into bed. Less than 15 hours before judgment arrives.

She's exhausted herself-- scrubbing and rehearsing and trying to make this apology as perfect as possible. It's not like she'd be able to sleep otherwise. And yet there's still so much work left to do.

She texts her boss that she's throwing up and won't be in. It's barely even a lie.

Her attendance record is very nearly perfect, anyway. She has the sick time to burn.

* * *

It's Monday evening, after work. Now that Marta's healthy again, Gideon almost always gets out by five. It should be easy for her to get to Harrow's by six. 

Harrow starts pacing in the foyer at 5:40.

At precisely the appointed time, the doorbell rings creakily. It sounds of rust and ruin. The only reason Harrow knows what it sounds like is because she tested it during her preparations. She was prepared to replace it if it didn't work. She can't leave any part of this plan to chance.

She still has to scramble to open the door. Her hands shake on the knob.

Gideon is standing on her porch. She's not dressed up: it's a jacket and a tank top, boots and jeans. The same thing she almost always wears.

"Come in." Harrow's mouth is dry. "Please."

Inside, Gideon toes off her boots, but instead of hanging up her jacket on the peg the way she always does, she drapes it over her arm. Harrow tries not to read into that too much.

It's quiet. Her house eats up noise, leaving only the tiniest sounds of rustling fabric. In her ears, Harrow's breath sounds like a hurricane.

"Come with me? Please?" She's fidgeting with her necklace, beads clacking against one another.

"Harrow--" says Gideon.

If Harrow knew how to talk about this, she would have already done so. She shakes her head and leads Gideon down the basement stairs, realizing for the first time that even with all the spiderwebs cleaned up, this is probably still a little creepy, especially when they reach the locked door

Everything about the house Harrow inherited from her parents is kind of creepy, though. Gideon has never been scared before.

Still, her hands are sweaty and the key slips in her grasp as she turns it in the lock.

“This had better not be some Bluebeard bullshit,” Gideon says as Harrow pushes the door open.

"It's not," says Harrow. She falters and shoves the key into Gideon's hands to prove it. You can't actually lock someone into this room anymore-- Harrow gave that to herself as her 18th birthday present-- but maybe Gideon needs the control. It's what Harrow would want for herself, and so it's what she gives Gideon.

It’s a music practice room, soundproofed and set up for serious training. One wall is mirrored. There's a piano in the corner, a bench. Technically, Harrow can play, can accompany herself, but that's not what she needs today, so she's set up the old sound system from her parents' living room. Harrow hasn't really used any of it since before she went away to college. Cleaning it out was a nightmare, but it's worth it, because Gideon is sitting down on the chair she dragged downstairs.

She has a chance, and she's not going to waste it.

She presses play. There's a few seconds of silence to give her time to take her time to take her position.

It's their song, the one they perform together. Harrow has slowed it down, taken out some of the verses to compensate, adjusted the lyrics so they tell the story she wants to tell.

She doesn't know why she can't just apologize like a normal person. She tried, half a dozen times, to compose a text. She can't find words. It's too enormous.

Hopefully, Gideon will understand.

As she sings, she takes off her first glove. It's a different pair, easier to take off. Gideon still has the one from the performance.

Gideon makes a low strangled sound. "Harrow--" she says.

Harrow narrows her eyes and keeps singing. She lays the second glove across Gideon's thigh. Gideon subsides into silence. 

When she'd put together the plan, she'd picked out Gideon's favorites. She hadn't realized she'd been keeping track of that, but when she'd stood in front of her closet, she'd known immediately what to wear. It had been the easiest part of the plan: the lingerie set with the red ribbon woven through the black lace, the chemise that had first made Gideon gasp when Harrow had let it drop to the floor. The dress that she's never shown anyone, the one that tears away.

She tears the dress away now. Gideon’s breath catches. It’s halfway through the song, and they both know it so well now.  _ I would die for you _ . 

Maybe this performance, buried under Harrow’s house in a locked basement room, is a kind of death, small and intimate, just the two of them together. Gideon hasn’t left. Harrow doesn’t know if she can allow herself to hope.

It took her an uncomfortably long time for her to figure out how to get her stockings off while singing. The angle is carefully calculated to make the most of the curves Harrow doesn’t have. But, when she looks up, Gideon’s cheeks have gone faintly pink.

Going into the last verse, she approaches Gideon. Lets the chemise drop. It’s at least the sixth time Gideon has seen this particular move, but from her reaction, it hasn’t lost its savor yet.

Her voice breaks on the last word. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one to impress here. If she hasn’t already won Gideon, one mistake isn’t going to make any difference.

She goes to her knees in front of Gideon as the last note fades from the room. In the silence, the old sound system crackles as it shuts off.

Harrow holds her breath. If this doesn’t work, she doesn’t know if she ever wants to breathe again.

“Oh my god,” says Gideon at long last. “Harrow.”

She stands up and grabs Harrow, hauling her up gracelessly by the armpits. Harrow ends up with her face squashed into Gideon’s neck. Their bodies press together, Harrow’s skin against denim and cotton.

“I”m sorry,” she says. She has a whole speech prepared-- about her parents and their expectations of her, about how she loves singing anyway, about how if she only ever sang for Gideon again it would be enough. With Gideon this close, it all seems superfluous. Maybe she already knows, or if she doesn’t, Harrow can tell her about it later. This is a chance, and Harrow isn’t going to spoil it with old baggage that isn’t even relevant anymore.

Besides, it’s hard to talk with her mouth pressed into Gideon’s shoulder.

It’s quiet in the practice room. They hold on to each other, and the thick walls hold the rest of the world out.

* * *

After a while, they end up on the floor, even though there’s a chair right there. Harrow feels vaguely like she should be able to let go, but Gideon is clinging too. She’s safe in the cradle of Gideon’s thighs, and if the floor isn’t particularly comfortable, at least Gideon’s legs won’t fall asleep. She doesn’t want to move.

She presses her lips against Gideon’s collarbone and breathes in. She’s never letting this go again.

Gideon’s abs tense against her elbow. “Harrow, you can’t do that when we have to talk.”

“Why not?” asks Harrow, looking up. Gideon’s eyes have gone dark and her breathing has gone shallow. Oh.  _ Oh _ . That’s incredibly gratifying. Harrow is going to remember that one.

Unfortunately, Gideon is right. Harrow sits up as straight as she can without leaving the circle of Gideon’s arms.

“Didn’t you read my text messages?” Gideon leans back to drag her jacket over from where it’s fallen on the floor. She fishes her phone out of the pocket, fiddles with it, and hands it over. “Uh, don’t scroll up. I was… pretty upset.”

The last text message in the string, from the previous Monday, has actual punctuation and capital letters. Each period sears Harrow’s soul.

_ I don’t know what I did. Please talk to me. I love you. _

The screen of Gideon’s phone flicks off. Harrow realizes she’s been staring blankly at it for nearly a minute. She’s shivering.

“It was nothing you did,” says Harrow at last, giving Gideon her phone back. “When I saw you dead--”

“--it was an  _ act, _ Harrow--”

“It’s a very convincing one.” She leans into Gideon again, just a little bit, and Gideon pulls her in close. “Anyway. I got scared. I hadn’t realized, until just then, how much I cared--”

“Palamedes said it might be something like that.”

“You talked to Palamedes?”

“Well,  _ you _ weren’t talking to me!” That’s meant to be Gideon’s indignant tone, but even tucked up against Gideon’s shoulder, she can hear the smile. She can’t blame Gideon, and she can’t be really upset.

“So,” Harrow says. “Dating? For real?”

“I kind of figured we were,” says Gideon. “Like, in  _ May _ .”

Harrow groans and buries her face in Gideon's chest.

"So, wait," says Gideon. "While we’re clarifying things. You sent me this, but you answered the door. What's the key for?" She digs it out of her shirt, where she's wearing it on a chain.

"It’s the spare key for the house. You keep it." Harrow pauses, suddenly nervous again. "If you want to."

"You know that means I'm going to be over here a lot." Gideon rubs a hand absently over the bare skin at the small of Harrow’s back. "My roommates never help with the dishes."

Solemnly, Harrow says, “I promise I will help you do the dishes.” It's too soon to ask Gideon to move in. But Harrow’s overheard Gideon telling Jeannemary roommate horror stories whenever Jeannemary complains about Isaac leaving weird books in their kitchen cabinets, and so she knows that Gideon’s sublet is up in three months. She has hopes.

Gideon’s cheek presses hard against Harrow’s temple. "I love you, too, loser.”


	12. Chapter 12

Eventually, both pairs of their legs fall asleep. They climb to their feet. Harrow winces and tries to rub feeling back into her thighs; Gideon pulls her jacket back on.

“What’s up with this room, anyway?” says Gideon. “Were your parents always busting in on you or something?”

Harrow takes a deep breath. “My parents thought I ought to be the greatest singer of my generation. From a very young age, it was all voice lessons and practices.”

“I thought you liked that kind of thing.”

“Eventually, I did.” This isn’t the speech she had prepared. She doesn’t quite know how to continue.

“But?” Gideon prompts.

“But I was a child, Griddle. I wanted to play outside and watch cartoons, not spend every sunny afternoon singing in a basement room. So. My parents installed a lock. I was allowed out once I’d finished my practice.

“And then there was the lawsuit, and then they killed themselves.” Harrow shrugs. It’s a highly abbreviated version of what happened. She had known, from a very young age, about the child labor violations that paid for the voice lessons. What she hadn’t known, until the lawsuit, was that there was a way to make it  _ stop _ . "I kept singing because I didn't know what else to do, and because, by then, I was good at it."

“Harrow,” says Gideon. “Harrow, I’m so bloody sorry.” She runs her fingers fitfully over the door frame as if she's expecting to find old nail gouges from an escape attempt or a secret compartment containing treasure hidden under the molding.

Brushing dirt off her hands, Harrow turns to the door. "It’s done. It doesn’t matter anymore. We should probably go somewhere less depressing."

“What the fuck,” says Gideon, finding her stride again. “Nope, we’re christening this shit.”

Harrow gapes at her. "Here?"

"You live here. Do you want this to be the room where your parents locked you up? Or do you want this to be the room where you had smoking hot sex with--" Gideon's voice hitches, imperceptible to someone who hasn't known her all her life, and her smile goes shy-- "your girlfriend?"

“It’s not like I ever lacked for anything I really needed,” Harrow feels obligated to point out. “ _ I _ was never the one they hurt.”

Gideon does not look impressed with this. “Why did you bring me here?”

"It had a mirror," says Harrow, scooping her dress off the floor. "I thought you might like that. I didn't think you’d want to have  _ sex _ here."

"What did you expect me to want after you danced like that for me?" Gideon asks incredulously.

Harrow stops gathering her discarded clothes and grabs onto the back of the chair for stability. "I didn't expect you to want to stay. I thought you'd want to make me grovel."

"I mean, if it would make you feel better, I wouldn't say no." Gideon puts her hand over Harrow's on the chair, rubbing her thumb over Harrow's knuckles. "But I'd rather have you  _ with _ me."

She leans down over Harrow and kisses her. Harrow fists her hands in the leather of Gideon's jacket and hangs on. It's chilly in the basement, chillier because Harrow isn't really dressed, and Gideon radiates heat. Her arms come around Harrow; her hands smooth down Harrow's back. It warms her from her toes up.

Gideon looks at her. “Do you want to watch me?”

Harrow breathes out, all wonder and desire. "Yes."

Without music, Gideon moves differently. Faster, for one thing. She’s baring skin at an alarming pace.

Daringly, Harrow steps in. She gets to stare at the rippling expanse of Gideon's back spread out in front of her, Gideon's torso in the mirror, abs and all. Why has she not taken the time to look? “Can I touch you?”

Gideon tosses her jeans onto the chair. "Always."

Harrow can make herself disappear behind the bulk of Gideon, but then she can't watch her own hands trace the outlines of muscles, clutch at the softness of Gideon’s hips, move over the jut of bones. Gideon’s body is sheer poetry when she moves, and there’s no way Harrow is ever this beautiful, but she can begin to understand why Gideon likes to watch. She would never have asked for this show on her own behalf. She’s so glad Gideon offered.

When she can't stand looking at Gideon anymore, she mouths at Gideon’s collarbone. Gideon makes a strangled little noise.

“You’re going to use that ruthlessly, aren’t you?” Gideon asks.

And, well, yes. Ruthless is what Harrow does. She smiles against Gideon's skin and bites down. They have another performance this weekend, but the weekend is days away and anyway Harrow has extensive experience in using concealer.

In the end, the sex isn’t anything special-- just the two of them naked and tangled up on a haphazard blanket made out of Gideon’s jacket and Harrow’s dress on top of the wooden floor. It’s short and clumsy, but they end up sweaty and satisfied anyway.

Harrow can’t stop touching Gideon-- her girlfriend, her  _ girlfriend _ . She’s never had a girlfriend before. It had always seemed messy and unimportant, before. Now, it's the most essential thing in her life. She can’t believe how close she came to losing this.

She doesn’t mean to drift off. It’s just that this is the most comfortable place she’s been in a week, head on Gideon’s shoulder on the practice room floor.

* * *

“So, did you have a plan for food?” Gideon’s flat on her back on the practice room floor. The cold has woken them up.

Harrow winces. She hasn’t thought about food for a week. After the incident where Harrow fainted backstage after her second act because she’d forgotten to eat for too long, Camilla drove her to the grocery store and forced her to stock her own pantry with nonperishable meal replacements. (Palamedes tells her not to be offended because she does the same thing for him.) Now that Gideon mentions it, she’s actually hungry, too.

The long silence is apparently telling. Gideon laughs. “I should have known. Never mind, we can order a pizza or something.”

“I will order a pizza.” Propped up on an elbow, Harrow blearily searches the practice room. Her dress has to be around here somewhere. No, wait, Gideon is lying on it. Well, she can go upstairs and get another one, make the phone call, and then maybe raid the wine cellar she hasn’t touched in years.

“Stop that.” Gideon doesn’t even open her eyes. “I can hear you thinking from here.”

Harrow sits up the rest of the way. “The entire point of this encounter is for me to apologize. The absolute  _ least _ I can do is buy you dinner.”

At that, Gideon does open her eyes. They’re crinkled at the corners. “If you buy me dinner, does that make this officially a date?”

It startles a laugh from Harrow. “If you want.”

* * *

Over Gideon’s objections, they eat delivery pizza with the good wine in the actual dining room on the company china. Harrow has to emergency-dust the table and scrub off the dishes while they’re waiting for the food to arrive. It’s worth it when Harrow gets to see Gideon’s face by candlelight, across from her. Under the table, their ankles tangle together. 

It’s their first official date. Harrow wants to do it right.

Also over Gideon’s objections, they both dress for the meal-- Gideon in the clothes she was wearing earlier; Harrow in something astonishingly flimsy, as a concession.

After all the dishes are in the sink, they blow out the candles and take the clothes off again.

* * *

The next morning, Gideon isn’t in bed with her.

Harrow pads into the kitchen to make coffee, but there’s already a full pot on the counter. Gideon is standing at the stove, cooking eggs.

Guilt hits her in the rib cage. “You don’t have to make me breakfast. There are granola bars for when I don’t have time to waste on eating.”

“I’m your girlfriend,” says Gideon. “I’m allowed to make you eat real food. Sit down.” She points at the tiny kitchen table with the spatula. There are two plates on it already. One holds a piece of toast, the other only crumbs where toast once was. Harrow pours herself a mug of coffee and sits.

She thumbs her phone open and texts her boss that she’s still sick.

* * *

They're back in bed, taking it slow, enjoying each other. Harrow's heart bursts with affection. Gideon brings Harrow's hand up to her mouth and kisses the palm. 

It reminds Harrow of something she's been wondering. "What did you do with my glove?" She's watching, so she gets to see Gideon's cheeks color. 

"Kept it," Gideon says. "At first I thought you were going to say something. And then, when you didn't, I wanted to keep it to remember. It smells like you."

"Where is it?"

"If you want me to give it back, Nonagesimus, nothing doing. I earned that glove fair and square." She pauses, considering. "I might get it framed. Do you think it would look good on my bedroom wall?"

Harrow still hasn't seen Gideon's bedroom wall and says so, but she's laughing while she says it.

"Maybe I can hang it up here, then," says Gideon. "You've got lots of wall space."

"My glove is not some kind of hunting trophy."

"It kind of is," says Gideon, pressing Harrow's head against her shoulder. 

The shoulder smells comfortingly like Gideon and, thrillingly, a bit like Harrow, too. She turns her face to kiss it.

"Harrow," says Gideon, seriously now. "I was so bloody scared."

"I'm sorry," says Harrow immediately. "I didn't mean to. I just-- needed to figure some things out."

Gideon clasps her hand against the cropped hair at the back of Harrow’s head. “Yeah.”

"It worked out," Harrow says, automatically defensive even though it came far, far too close to the other outcome. Maybe if she says it often enough, the fear will abate.   


"And I'm glad," says Gideon. "Only next time you need to figure something out, maybe try therapy instead of not talking to me for a week?"

Therapy isn't a terrible idea. "Perhaps,” she says. She can look it up later. Right now, she’s busy.

* * *

A few hours before practice, they throw the sheets and Gideon’s clothes in the laundry and jump in the shower.

Harrow learns that the reality of smelling her soap on Gideon’s skin is even better than the fantasy.

They have to shower again before practice.

* * *

Harrow vetoes Gideon's idea of holding hands when they walk in. "No one else holds hands, and half of them are fucking each other."

Gideon seems much too interested in that.

"I don't want to encourage them to interfere in our relationship," Harrow goes on.

"Palamedes helped," Gideon points out.

Palamedes is an exception. She should have probably texted him that her apology went well at some point prior to practice. But he’s smart. He’ll figure it out.

As it turns out, when they walk in together, everyone knows immediately anyway.

“All sorted out?” asks Abigail. She means to be nice.

Mortified, Harrow nods.   


Ianthe doesn’t pause unpacking her practice bag. “Finally.”

Jeannemary and Isaac high-five and actually cheer. Dulcinea just smirks, lounging across the room. That’s her I-told-you-so face.

Harrow puts her bag in the closest corner and tries to disappear into the wall. Gideon puts a warm hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s practice,” she says.

There was a time, seven or eight months ago, when practice was the highlight of Harrow’s week, second only to performing. Now, she has a lot more things to look forward to. Practice is still good.

She gathers together Magnus and Abigail. It’s September; they have to approve any changes to the act. It’s September, and actually she has absolutely no business suggesting any changes at all. She draws in a breath, centers herself, lets it out. Considers. Beckons over Camilla and Palamedes, too, because she suspects they are the masterminds behind the current iteration of the act.

Six of them gathered together in a knot is half of the troupe, hardly the discreet gathering Harrow would have preferred. 

Gideon squeezes her hand. It braces her, gives her the courage to say what they’ve agreed Harrow needs to say.

“I have an idea for the act,” says Harrow.


	13. Epilogue

As the accompaniment cuts out, silence falls on the stage. Harrow holds her pose for two breathless beats, snatches up the sword from where it’s fallen next to Gideon’s corpse, and avenges her. (It never gets easier seeing Gideon mock-dead on the stage. Harrow gets better at coping with it, which is not the same thing.)

As she runs through their last imaginary foe, Harrow holds the pose, arm with the sword fully extended. Then she falls to her knees. From there, she collapses so that her body crosses Gideon’s. 

It’s an ambiguous ending. The audience never finds out if Harrow’s character lives. That unresolved intensity earns the troupe critical praise in the local papers and standing ovations at the end of shows all October long.

* * *

Gideon takes to spending the nights after practices and shows at Harrow’s. In October, that’s most of them. Weekday shows crowd out practices as venues book the goth burlesque troupe in the lead-up to Halloween.

In preparation, Harrow clears out a drawer in her bureau at the end of September. As the month goes on, the drawer overflows, no matter how tidy Gideon is. She gives up and makes Gideon help her move an empty wardrobe from one of the guest rooms into her bedroom.

Gideon doesn’t complain, because she’s been doing her laundry at Harrow’s. “I don’t have to use quarters and no one ever dumps my clean laundry on the floor,” she says, hefting at least a hundred pounds of wood in a way that does truly intriguing things to her forearms. “I’m definitely getting the good end of the deal here.”

On a rare day when Gideon  _ isn’t _ over, Harrow peeks into one of the drawers in the wardrobe. The rows of shirts are neatly folded into rectangles, all the same shape and laid out vertically so every shirt is visible, even though they're almost all identical. Harrow closes the drawer. It’s completely different from her drawers, which are frankly disaster areas.

It's nice to see how Gideon lives. Nicer that it's here, in Harrow's bedroom.

The month goes by in a blur. Even though she’s even busier than she’s ever been in October, Harrow gets the best sleep she’s ever had that month.

* * *

In November, Harrow has a quiet word with Magnus about the troupe New Year’s party. Magnus and Abigail usually host, but Harrow has never had people of her own over, and she thinks Gideon would like to have their people over.

He doesn't mind giving up the responsibility for a year, so Harrow brings it up to Gideon one night after practice.

Gideon grins, breathtakingly bright. "What do we need to do?"

Harrow explains, making an unfamiliar face that makes her cheeks hurt.

* * *

They're both still calling it "Harrow's house" out loud, but Gideon isn't apartment hunting for when her lease is up in mid-December, either. (Or maybe she's doing it very discreetly. Harrow voices this thought to her therapist, who manages to ask, very neutrally, if the evidence supports that conclusion. And-- given the increasing volume of Gideon's things finding homes in Harrow's closets-- it really doesn't.)

She gets home from therapy and finds Gideon's boots already there by the door. The woman herself sprawls out on the couch in the living room that Harrow never uses, paging one-handed through a skin mag.

Harrow props her hand on her hips. “Are you moving in?”

Reflexively, Gideon shoves the magazine behind the couch cushion. “I mean, not right this second. But... ” She trails off hopefully and comes over to kiss Harrow hello.

When Gideon lets her go, Harrow taps her foot. She needs to hear Gideon say it. Otherwise, it isn’t real. “Do I need to rent a truck?” Harrow will grudgingly admit that Gideon’s motorcycle has grown on her, but it’s not a good vehicle to haul stuff in any quantity.

Gideon laughs. “I don’t really have that much stuff.” She rakes her hand back through her hair. “You really want me to move in?”

Officially, it’s only been a few months, but Gideon practically lives here already. And, in real life, it’s been since February, almost a whole year. Harrow could equivocate about how it’s practical and how she has all this space that she doesn’t even use, but really, she just wants to wake up to Gideon’s terrible hair and worse morning breath every day. 

She takes a deep breath. “I would like that.”

Gideon actually picks her up and spins her. 

“Griddle,” says Harrow, “put me  _ down _ .” She ruins the effect by laughing.

* * *

In the end, Gideon asks Cam for help. They end up loading Gideon’s things into Palamedes’ Subaru on a crisp Saturday morning in early December after a Friday night show. The drawers in Gideon’s apartment are already almost empty. There really isn’t much to move, just a few boxes of magazines and a surprising number of kitchen gadgets. Well, Harrow has an entire butler’s pantry that she barely uses. They’ll figure it out.

They’ve left Palamedes and Dulcinea back at the house to make room in the car so they only have to make one trip. Cam drives like Gideon: a lead foot in the straights and too fast in the turns. In the back seat, Harrow clutches the box containing Gideon’s air fryer to keep it from braining anyone.

When all the boxes are inside-- there really aren’t that many-- they eat pizza and drink beer spread out over Harrow’s living room. (Or-- Gideon and Cam eat pizza while Harrow, Palamedes, and Dulcinea pick at their slices. They finish the pie, anyway, and that’s the important part.) It’s traditional, and Harrow is a traditionalist. She doesn’t even like beer.

“Now you have a TV,” Gideon points out, as if this is the one thing that Harrow’s house had been missing. “We could watch something.”

But the television cables are a tangled rat’s nest, and Harrow wants to get the boxes out of her hallway.  _ Their _ hallway. Cam announces that she, Palamedes, and Dulcinea have a prior engagement in a tone of voice that makes Harrow suspect that they did not in fact have a prior engagement. She’ll take it. 

* * *

It's a perverse pleasure to help install Gideon's collection of dirty magazines in her father's study. Gideon dusts the top shelves while Harrow boxes up the leather-bound set of classics that she cannot remember anyone ever having read.

"Wow, Nonagesimus, not really one for housework, are you?" She looks over her shoulder at Harrow, dust smudged on her cheek.

Harrow smiles up at her. Before Gideon, she'd never had anyone to clean for.

* * *

For the New Year's party, Gideon makes chicken wings in her air fryer. Somehow, she gets her homemade sauces from the cabinets to the floor. The whole troupe agrees that the kitchen is an acceptable casualty for the result. Even the experimental vegetarian wings get demolished.

Coronabeth asks Gideon for the recipe before she, Ianthe, and Babs sweep off to the next party on their New Year's circuit.

Isaac comes with his new boyfriend, Kevin. To everyone’s shock, Kevin has good hair. This unexpected evidence of Isaac's good taste flies in the face of everything anyone has ever observed about Isaac himself. Jeannemary spends the evening seeing how many times she can make Isaac blush.

Magnus and Abigail benevolently ignore this in favor of holding card-game court in Harrow’s living room. Apparently, Kevin is getting the trial-by-fire treatment tonight.

Palamedes makes an immediate beeline for some of the more esoteric arts history books on the shelves-- volumes that had once lived in Harrow's bedroom, volumes that had been evicted to make space for Gideon's things. Harrow joins him. Dulcinea comes along as well, making lascivious faces when she finds Gideon's literature interspersed with the serious texts. Cam rolls her eyes and goes to help Gideon bring the desserts out of the kitchen.

At midnight, Gideon sweeps Harrow up into a kiss so hard that Harrow has to throw out an arm for balance. Her champagne flute breaks against the wall.

They spend the first few minutes of the new year cleaning up broken glass. It’s worth it.

* * *

On New Year’s Day, Harrow wakes up first. Therapy has been going well. She’s feeling brave. 

She pokes Gideon lightly. She doesn’t want her to wake up and find Harrow gone, and she has a contingency plan if Gideon is ready to get up.

But Gideon just snores at her, so Harrow begins the process of extracting herself out from under her girlfriend. Gideon is a big lump when she's asleep. Harrow has gotten a lot of practice at this over the past three months.

The outfit is hidden in the back of her closet, among and indistinguishable from all of the other black outfits. It's something she's been thinking about for a while now. Something she's been saving for a special occasion. She puts it on, a costume made of street clothes, calculated to impress an audience of one.

Dressed, she perches on the edge of the bed and shakes Gideon awake. Golden eyes open slowly, Gideon rubbing the sleep away.

"Morning," she whispers. The sight of Gideon stretching her mass of warm brown muscles beneath the sheets in her bed-- their bed!-- is still enough by itself to make her pulse accelerate.

"Mmmm," Gideon agrees, pulling Harrow down for a kiss. Her hand fists in the crinkly fabric at Harrow's hip. "So you're not thinking New Year's morning sex?"

Harrow takes the first steps into shaky ground. "No, I was," she says. "I had an idea." 

No turning back now. Gideon props herself up on her elbows, all trace of sleepiness gone at the prospect of sex. “Yeah?"

Harrow doesn't explain, just draws Gideon out of the bed and down the hall to the guest room. It's warm once Harrow closes the door behind them, mostly because Harrow has adjusted the thermostat in anticipation.

There's a free-standing full-length mirror with the same kind of heavy carved frame as the one in the entrance hall. It doesn’t match the rest of the room. Harrow has failed in front of two mirrors in this house already; she wants a fresh start.

(When Gideon moved in, she’d wanted to fuck in all of the rooms in Harrow's house, chasing out the ghosts in some kind of sex exorcism. After Gideon had pronounced this guest room well and truly christened, Harrow had found an excuse to send her on an errand. It had taken all Harrow’s strength to haul the mirror down the steep, narrow attic stairs.)

Harrow stands before it and draws Gideon to stand behind her. She musters up her courage. "Undress me?"

Gideon stops, meets Harrow's eyes in the mirror. "Are you sure?"

Harrow is many things-- nervous, excited, scared-- and none of them are sure. "Please?" she says instead. "I want to try."

The corset is the only complicated piece in the ensemble, and on a scale of corsets, it's relatively simple to get on and off. (The embellishment is, of course, immaculate. Harrow does not accept second-best in anything.) But she'd wanted a corset, for the shape of the outfit and for the way Gideon's fingers brush against her back when she helps to take it off.

Gideon takes her time with it, loosening the hastily-tied laces and putting them in perfect order, pausing frequently to brush kisses over Harrow's brow, down the side of her face, onto her shoulders.

By the time Harrow raises her arms to help Gideon pull the corset off, her body is already warm and curving into Gideon’s. This is the easy part, though.

The skirts are separate pieces from the top, and they’re fastened with zippers and a single hook, not endless rows of buttons. They come off easily, Gideon’s hands confident as she tugs fastenings apart. It leaves Harrow in one of the lingerie sets she’s chosen over the past few months with Gideon’s eyes in mind. It’s not exactly frothy, but the way black lace barely covers the skin is certainly suggestive. Garters and thigh-high stockings outline her legs in sheer fabric. Historical data indicates that Gideon finds this irresistible.

“Look at you,” says Gideon. “My beautiful girl.”

Harrow still thinks she's too skinny and too pointy, but she looks. Mostly, she looks at the way Gideon is looking at her. It’s still not the way Gideon looks at Coronabeth or Dulcinea or Abigail. It’s the way Gideon looks at Harrow, and that’s  _ better _ . 

She tries out a hesitant shimmy, and Gideon's hands go from skimming the lines of her body to crushing them together. This... isn't bad.

Gideon's focus is as bright and intense as her hair. Harrow reminds herself she is allowed to enjoy it. It whips through her like fire, burning away the worst of her fears. In therapy, Harrow has learned that the fears aren't gone for good: they'll come back, and she'll have to fight them back again. But now she has better tools.

When Gideon's hands go to the front clasp of her bra, she braces herself. But, for once, the little voice in her brain that compares her breasts to everyone else’s stays quiet. For once, she gets to watch Gideon’s fingers drawing lace and wires to reveal nipples and curves. For once, she lets herself revel in the soft noise Gideon always makes when Harrow’s bra comes off.

For once, Gideon’s hands don’t stay at her breasts; they trace over Harrow’s body, always touching somewhere new. She leans back, trusting in Gideon’s muscles. Gideon takes her weight. 

Gideon's hand slips under the fabric covering her. "Is this okay?" she asks. Her other thumb finds the tender spot under her garter. "Your legs are so hot in these, I don’t want to take them off."

In lieu of response, Harrow stretches her arms up and hooks them behind Gideon's head. She tilts her head back, and they kiss, holding eye contact in the mirror until Gideon's gaze slides down.

Harrow isn't even sure she recognizes the girl in the mirror, topless and wanton with her girlfriend's hand down her panties. But she can feel Gideon's lips and Gideon's palm on her skin. It grounds her. Lets her rock onto Gideon's palm.

Gideon parts her folds, slides work-rough hands to find the places where Harrow is slick. The progression of her arousal has been second to the glad tightness in her chest, but it accelerates as Gideon’s fingers move against her. It’s so good.

“God, yes,” Gideon murmurs into her ear as Harrow’s cries grow in volume. “Sing for me, gorgeous.” The hand cupping Harrow’s cunt is steady and relentless; the other finds every spot Gideon has learned over the months they’ve been together.

Harrow watches Gideon’s hands, holding her and teasing her and supporting her. Her arms are still hooked up around behind Gideon’s neck. She tries to pull her down for kisses, but Gideon’s nails rake lightly over her flank and she ends up screaming instead, Gideon’s chin firm against her cheek. Everything between her shoulders and her elbows begins to burn, but she holds on tight for balance as her legs go loose with pleasure.

She rides the crescendo and does not let go.

It turns out that she can't quite come like this, impossibly hot though it is. That's okay. They have the rest of the day together. "Bed?" she suggests. The mirror is fun, but her hands itch to touch Gideon. Also, she’d really like to get off.

Gideon’s eyes have gone strangely bright. Harrow realizes with shock that there are salt water droplets on Gideon’s cheeks. She turns and reaches up to brush them away. “Was that okay?”

“You’re still here,” says Gideon. At this, Harrow’s eyes sting, too. She still struggles to put words around so many things, but Gideon understands.

She’s not hiding anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With immense thanks to the Locked Tomb Discord server and everyone who's read and left kudos or comments.
> 
> You've all made my life in this time a little better and a little brighter.


End file.
